BHS Inkwell 2017-2018

“Listen. A book is when you write down a story. So it can live forever. A Library is like an immortal commune of stories. And I have one in my living space.There are some books which must die, because when they come for me within the hour, they will expect to find books.” “What do you want from me?” “I have four books. Take them. I know you don’t want to. I didn’t. Stories choose you. You don’t choose them. Turn them in and go back to your life, if you want. I’ve done my duty. I’ve passed on the Library. What you do is yours. Take them.” The woman’s eyes are made of a language that the girl does not speak. “I am going.” “You will be killed,” the girl says. “I am going to die, one way or another.This is not the worst way to do it.” She hands the girl a heavy bag full of boxy objects and turns around, walking back.The girl walks away from the heart of the city. It’s dusk. When she finds a place where the cameras cannot see, she

stops and looks through the bag.The stories are made of leather and something hard, like cardboard, and paper, more paper than she’s ever seen bound up in one bundle. She opens one up. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Once upon a time, in a far-off country- -I loaf and invite myself. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. -The wind blows around, and back, and back to the place where it was before. Do you become a rose tree, and I a rose upon it? Why, what is grass if not the beautiful uncut The girl closes the books. She slips them back into the bag and stands up, walking northwest along the wide road. hair of graves?

Berit Wilkins

Previous Page Photo Credit - Sean Coble

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