When we here at Persimmon Dreams discovered online the article entitled “Why Readers, Scientifically, Are The Best People To Fall In Love With” (found at elitedaily.com . . . their capitals, not ours), we knew we had to spring into action. As amazing as it may sound, we’d been familiar with the concept of empathy for quite some time, but we’d always associated it such humdrum, non-sexy, yawn-inducing statements as, “It will make you a better human being,” “It will make you a more responsible member of society,” “It will make you feel the huge part of the universe that you are,” and “It will give you peace of mind.” We had never heard it put as alluringly and tantalizingly as the article above does, basically . . . READ BOOKS, GET SOME EMPATHY, and TURN YOUR LOVE LIFE AROUND!!!!!  (Well, actually, the article said that people who read fiction tend to develop empathy, people with empathy tend to understand their partners better and thus show more consideration, and thus such people may be worth searching out if you’re looking for a significant other. Still, I think what I wrote in capital letters may be what many folks who read the article take from it.)

Well, we’re stubborn here at Persimmon Dreams, so we have to admit that we’d wished that some of those “humdrum” ideas mentioned above had gotten into more folks’ heads, but falling in love with the right person in the right way is an awful good thing too, so what the heck. If it’s romantic love that gets folks worked up about empathy, then more power to it.

Anyway, we know this this new love angle is going to lead to some pretty darned magical stuff. People are going to be out to gorge themselves with all the empathy they can, and that will mean a lot of fighting tooth and nail through bookstores and libraries to secure copies of the most precious (the most empathy-packed) books, and getting out to the park or the beach to  READ! and to BE SEEN READING BY POTENTIAL ROMANTIC PARTNERS!

And how can you read, if you don’t have a bookmark? Why, you’d lose your place! You’d get all frustrated! You’d give up! And all the wonders that empathy could bring you would be lost to you forever!

So that’s what we here at Persimmon Dreams meant when we said above that we knew we had to spring into action. If there weren’t enough bookmarks in the world, this whole empathy thing might blow over. It might come to nothing.

So we fired up the factory. We had every employee pulling double shifts. Our designers made giant pots of coffee. Exquisite ribbons were acquired. The assembly line was reconfigured. The paper mills began bellowing paper-mill stuff into the air, and all sorts of fascinating images began flying out from the presses. In all, a lot of midnight oil was burned. The thinkers thought, the choppers chopped, the slicers and trimmers sliced and trimmed, the luminators luminated, the pokers, twisters, and knotters poked, twisted and knotted.

Quite a lot of time was spent searching for the  scissors.

Lest you doubt the grandness of our factory, take a look at it, albeit at rest, in the two matching pictures below.

So we did what we could.  And as my good friend the cowardly, tail-sucking lion used to say, “we do believe in empathy,we do believe in empathy, we do we do we do believe in empathy.”

But to be honest, we blew a couple of gaskets, and our resources (our accounting staff has just informed us), are far from limited, so the supplies of bookmarks are also limited, but still we would like to get the product of our labors into the hands of as many empathy seekers as possible . . . so if you happen to be in the neck of the woods where our company bicycle is moving merrily along–all company facilities and every single last employee piled up on the saddle (yes, yes, Henry David Thoreau would marvel at our mobility)–and your soul is open wide to the bliss that empathy can bring you, give us a shout out and ask us how you can get your hand on a bookmark.

Remember, though, supplies are limited. Severely.