I am timely.
I am the saviour.
I am the ultimate legerdemain.
The eyes behind the glasses measure me. They seem wary.
I remember to look tired.
A magician’s trick. Misdirection. I look disinterested.
“I hope you find what you are looking for”, the woman behind the desk says.
I walk through the aisles. There is an air of
somnolence.
They lie still. Waiting to be discovered. Waiting to be
picked.
I remember the first time I saw my parents at the orphanage.
“Pick me, pick me”, I had shouted out to them in desperation.
No one likes to be an orphan.
Or worse. A Foster kid. Passed on from home to home. The
psyche scarred and mutilated beyond repair.
Like a magician I make them disappear. One at a time. When the woman at the desk is not looking.
I pick out the most unloved ones first. No one misses them.
No one raises an alarm.
That means I can’t choose. And sometimes don’t connect to a
lot of those that I rescue.
I pick out one. Caress it, smell it.
I love smelling them.
I could spend a lifetime doing that.
There are cruel people here.
I run my hand over the broken spine, and whisper to it.
I don’t understand it. But that’s not its fault.
In its defense it was one of the most articulate books of
its time.
“Principica Mathematica, you are coming home with me today.”
It is a dangerous, dangerous world for books. I rescue them
from the cruel hordes at public libraries.
