Dead Books
Coming in 2019
Kansas City, Missouri
2:00am
July 12th
The girl who loved books had once joked that the desk at the center of her apartment, in her bedroom, was an altar; a place in which she worshipped learning, prayed for good grades, for absolution when she’d fallen behind, and gave thanks for forgiving professors. Her friends had laughed and wished they’d said it first.
Tonight, the altar was unattended, sitting a darkness interrupted by islands of light. A single goose neck reading lamp, leaned over an unattended book as though in earnest prayer. The laptop blinking "Disc Error." Two of three candles flickered, each deliquescing into large thick puddles of wax.
The floor between the desk and the bed was littered with scattered papers, books lying open as though the re
