Very Short Stories & Drabbles

8/6/21 Drabble: A Book's Life

Any reader will tell you that a library book has a soul. You can tell what it's been through just by holding it, by smelling its worn pages, by feeling its torn cover. Every crease, every earmark, every damaged spine and hole tells a tale. It's lived a life all its own, shuffled from hand to hand, from home to home, for years if not decades. Some have been cared for with tape and glue. Others have been left to whither and die. But we'll never know their stories. Their duty is to be read and passed on to another.