The Reader

She read with horror the words sprawled across the pages of the beaten, crumpled book. They were vulgar and pure. Coffee stains, ink spilled over scribblings etched out on the margins and torn earmarked corners of favourite pages over the dacades had colored the patchy yellowish brown paper now loosely bound at the edge. With each turn of a page, a collage of ground wooden bark, grated lint and vintage pulp scented the swoosh of air that lightly touched her cheeks and teased her fallen loose strands. Her back hunched over as her eyes crept into the book. She could smell the years lived by the book freshly picked out from the secondhand store. She felt violated, yet comforted that another being from another time and place could give voice and shape to what she had secretly harbored. She released a deep fold at the top right corner of the first page and discovered two words in red ballpoint ink. “how true!” she gasped at the echoing of thoughts. Her world was silenced. And the room faded out. She read on as if in the company of those who held the book before her. despite herself,a little drop teared and found its spot on the red print that mushroomed into a blot. then she turned the page.