Paper Voices

There were names, a story within a story. I sounded out printed letter pairs searching for friends, curious about strangers. I had favorites, books where my name was printed several times, letters shrinking line by line. There was a time when they would stamp each book. Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk. Ten times. There was a limit for children. I would take them in my tote, keeping weight from cold linoleum.

Later, they quickly dunked a pre-stamped card, only slightly cracking open the cover at check-out. I wondered how they knew how many cards to stamp each morning, and who had the job of rolling the rubber to the next number. What happened to the unused cards? Their lists grew longer, closer to destruction, yet they remained in the box. Were there some that never left the library? Stamped and stamped again, but never slipped in pockets. At home, I breathed books. Unfamiliar smells. Coffee. Cigarettes. Curry.

I graduated to text books, old volumes, tracked by date, inventoried in ink. Names in responsible cursive. Sometimes I knew them, older brothers and sisters of my friends. I added my name to the bottom of the list, and imagined those who read before and those who would follow. Would they know me? I wrapped them tightly in grocery bags decorated with band names and logos, lyrics and icons of youth culture.

At university, I paged through used books, listening for voices in paper. I don’t write in books. I sought those closest to mint, but wondered why they were never touched. If the previous student didn’t use it, would I? Sometimes I would buy the book and later discover notes, penciled in margins in the first few chapters. What happened to the student before me? Did they drop the class? Did they know enough to pass without opening the text?

My daughter pulled a slip from one of my books and asked why it showed another name. She thought I had taken someone’s reserved book, and kept it for myself. I showed her the date on the receipt with the unfamiliar name. Kate something. December. I explained Kate must have had the book in December and left her receipt in the book to mark her place. Did Kate finish the book? Who is she?

I still smell books, and sometimes return them, repulsed. I miss the mystery. Now we have book clubs. We gather and read and reveal passions and weaknesses in therapeutic circles. Deliberate. Calculated. Organized. Scheduled. Machines keep our secrets, our trails of inquiry and entertainment. But where are the people? I want to know who last touched my book. I want to ask whether they finished, if they cried. I want to know if they read it alone, or in a crowd. Did someone sacrifice for their reading pleasure? And then I want to part, maybe to never cross paths again. A single social object to bind us for a moment.