I Read Alot
In a book that I have read over 15 times since the year that I turned 17 years old, there is a fingerprint on the outside page, in the right hand margin. It was there when I bought the book. I purchased the book at a little used bookstore in the dirty place called "Old Baytown", the store was named The Book Mark. I don't think the store is there anymore, but I loved it while it was. While I was young and not looking for anything that made me think too hard or look to far into myself. That was saved for the dark. For the time when it was just me and the looping tracks of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.
The fingerprint is black ink. It is large and most assuredly from the hand of someone who never worried how they would defend their self. They would even scores with their hands. Their big powerful hands would leave marks where ever they had touched. Like books that would move on and on and farther and farther away from them. Though, their mark would go with that book and that book would forever remember those hands.
The circles inside this black inked print are tight wound and looking like they could explode into a tangle of madness at any moment. Surface structure is solid and calm. Only one print, and not a whole handful. I don't think it has been lonely over the years. A mark like that has memories and it is playing them in when you least expect it.
Fingerprints like this in a story of unrequited love are not natural, but I am overlooking that. I am making a story for the hand that left a piece of itself for me. I think the owner of this mark is somewhere just outside my vision and they are taunting me with the truth of their life.
I am not becoming obsessed with the mark nor who it belongs to. I have however given a thousand reasons to the mark there.
It was the type setter on the printing of the book, and it was a pure accident. He had rubbed his bulky fingers across the press and reached for the book, making this one a unique copy but certainly not worth tossing. He let the print dry and the book rolled on and nothing more of it was ever said.
It was the hefty Russian cleaning lady of the publishing house where the book was stored. She would pull up a box of books and rest her tired feet and eat an apple somewhere around the midnight hour before giving the floors the last time over. She would often times pick up a copy of the latest thing being shipped out and her hands were marked in the ink of this business that she had been working to clean off of everything. In the faint light of the small firm she didn't even notice her print. It was as simple as that.
It was the first owner of the book. He was something of a recluse. He bought the books over the phone in bulk and had them delivered. He would read them with the tenacity of an overeater in a pie-eating contest. He would make hurried notes in his black and white composition book, smearing ink all about. He went back to reading his book and was as unconcerned with leaving a mark in it as he was with leaving crumbs in his bear. Tomorrow the delivery boy would pick them back up and bring new ones. These books would be of no effect on the new day.
Marks we leave behind are really not ours anymore, but they belong to the souls who are brave enough to carry them on and make new lives for them.
The fingerprint is black ink. It is large and most assuredly from the hand of someone who never worried how they would defend their self. They would even scores with their hands. Their big powerful hands would leave marks where ever they had touched. Like books that would move on and on and farther and farther away from them. Though, their mark would go with that book and that book would forever remember those hands.
The circles inside this black inked print are tight wound and looking like they could explode into a tangle of madness at any moment. Surface structure is solid and calm. Only one print, and not a whole handful. I don't think it has been lonely over the years. A mark like that has memories and it is playing them in when you least expect it.
Fingerprints like this in a story of unrequited love are not natural, but I am overlooking that. I am making a story for the hand that left a piece of itself for me. I think the owner of this mark is somewhere just outside my vision and they are taunting me with the truth of their life.
I am not becoming obsessed with the mark nor who it belongs to. I have however given a thousand reasons to the mark there.
It was the type setter on the printing of the book, and it was a pure accident. He had rubbed his bulky fingers across the press and reached for the book, making this one a unique copy but certainly not worth tossing. He let the print dry and the book rolled on and nothing more of it was ever said.
It was the hefty Russian cleaning lady of the publishing house where the book was stored. She would pull up a box of books and rest her tired feet and eat an apple somewhere around the midnight hour before giving the floors the last time over. She would often times pick up a copy of the latest thing being shipped out and her hands were marked in the ink of this business that she had been working to clean off of everything. In the faint light of the small firm she didn't even notice her print. It was as simple as that.
It was the first owner of the book. He was something of a recluse. He bought the books over the phone in bulk and had them delivered. He would read them with the tenacity of an overeater in a pie-eating contest. He would make hurried notes in his black and white composition book, smearing ink all about. He went back to reading his book and was as unconcerned with leaving a mark in it as he was with leaving crumbs in his bear. Tomorrow the delivery boy would pick them back up and bring new ones. These books would be of no effect on the new day.
Marks we leave behind are really not ours anymore, but they belong to the souls who are brave enough to carry them on and make new lives for them.
By:
girlmcgirly
Age:
41-45
,
Female
5
responses
