His walk was slow
and carefully planned, he had fallen once, and it landed him in the hospital
and rehab for what he thought an eternity. The doctors told him to use a cane,
but it made him feel old and for Gods sake he was only eighty-eight. He entered
the public library a place he loved going to walk the isles and look at the sheer
magnitude of people’s writings. Billions of words that came out of people’s
minds and hearts put on paper and preserved for time unknown. He saved the last
isle for last as he did every visit. Carefully he scanned the shelves even
though he knew exactly where it was, after all hadn’t he reached for it a
hundred times or more? As he held the book in his hands the memories began to
flood back, some didn’t as his mind was sharp but not like it was when he wrote
the book over fifty years ago. The pages were worn and a little faded much like
himself, but he sat and read it from cover to cover like he had done so many
times before. The card on the inside said seventy-six people had checked the
book out and he wondered if they enjoyed reading it? He smiled a crooked little
smile and imagined some probably thought he was a bit on the crazy side. He
finished reading until the next time, slowly walking outside into the
brightness of a summer day he smiled again passing by people on their way in.
He wondered if one of them was number seventy-seven?
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