The Books

At the beginning there were no books.

The books were still in boxes, with most other things.

The books had been torn from their shelves like cotton in summer’s high heat, taped tightly into cardboard containers -- disorganized. In the rush to leave DC, without another tear soaking the burr burr carpet, the books were packed according to size, Tetris’ed into tight spaces for conservative packaging. These books were not used to sharing mixed company.

Hughes and MacLean were in tight quarters, which may have not bothered Hughes, but most certainly would have prompted an adjustment in the pacemaker of MacLean. Conrad and Greene brushed Hearts, but they had done so enough times before that the close proximately provided solace. Heller and O’Toole did not find each other as entertaining as one might think, and DuBois and Hawthorne were equally as unimpressed.

Together they took a long journey, though, secured among dressers and chairs, picture frames and pencil sharpeners, in the back of the orange branded UHaul truck. Before, before they had been in the truck, before they had been in boxes, they had learned to share shelves with strangers. Mostly women, many aggressive, some silent as the night. They were not impressed with the thought of finding new shelves, after they had finally settled into the warping warm curve of the built ins of the basement apartment.

Starting over is not the forte of paper people. It is not the forte of people made of flesh, for that matter.

When the truck had unloaded, when the tape was pulled back, and the books transplanted to new milk-crates and vertical domiciles, they shuffled a little. They shuffled and sighed and settled. They found comfort in being back with their categorical comrades, and looked fondly upon the tiny tears in their pages brought on by the journey they had survived.