They never knew I loved them back. That every time their hands brushed over me, I memorised the warmth – the touch, the patterns their callouses pressed against my skin. I would watch them, from my spot against the wall, squished against others until my spine was sore from erection and my feet collected dust. Often, I let myself study their movements – interject myself with curiosity into the way they would graze from one side of the room to the other, some due to age, others due to boredom. I realised, after 5 years, it was an art in itself to remain untouched by the souls who found themselves here. To be forgotten, in a realm where knowledge itself was a privilege, was a skill mastered by so few others. Yet, I excelled in it.
When I was younger, I found myself more popular. It was as if the more I grew and shattered and learnt from others – the less I was desired. Popularity was a sport, and I was forever tied for last with the step-by-step guides to happiness.
Because no-one was happy.
I was opened again and again, and sometimes I broke at the spine, but at least I was used. At least, I was passing on what I knew to someone who needed to know it.
The first time the bright-eyed girl entered my quarters; I could have sworn her eyes grazed over me. I felt the shiver down my spine, a rustling through my folds at the gentle brush of her dress along the wooden floor. The grace with which she walked across the room was nervous and flaked with hesitation as she partook in the debate on who was worth her time, and who was not. I wanted to cry out, to beg her to take me, open me, let me breathe. But she floated on.
When she returned the next day, my ears had been folded in two more places. Each by someone who showed no emotion as I spilled my secrets. Who did not even blink, as I shared with them all that was my worth, my life, my experience. I yearned to share with the world, to help others as they had helped me. In exchange for my story, they would let me breathe. I would let their fingers tell their own story as they examined every inch of me, seldom going back to the same paragraph twice. I did not get the luxury that was memorisation. I was seen, once, and then discarded.
I wondered if they found me boring.
Day after day, her small hands would hover over spines, lingering only long enough that I heard my brothers and sisters tremble with anticipation. Each time she dared near my place on the shelf, a shiver would run down my cover. But I would swallow the whisper of hope I dared not voice and then sink back into my own ink and paper. I learned the rhythm of her footsteps, the careful way she avoided those already chosen, already seen – those whose stories she had already heard, or let herself learn.
With each passing day, I began to know her. The way her fingers paused, the way they brushed others’ pages. The soft exhale when my familiars finally surrendered their secrets, the hesitant tilt of her head every few minutes – as if listening to not just the words, but the heartbeat of knowledge itself.
I wanted to reach out to her. I wanted to be her first choice, the story that would cling to her like a secret no-one else could know. But I remained silent, patient, folded in waiting, longing for the day she would choose me. The day she would run her fingers over my face, let her warm breath tickle against my insides, and devote herself to my story. The story which with every passing day, I realised, was being rewritten for her. That I was rewriting for her. Repurposing, praying and changing, in only the hopes that she would find me worth her time.
After 2 years of longing, I noticed her hands begin to steady. With each flip of a page, her breathing would even. She would not skim the words, nor would she sit cross-legged on the floor anymore. Instead, I often saw her curled up in a red armchair, her golden hair shining against the warm lights above.
I wondered if anyone would ever write a story as beautiful as her. I made a mental note to try.
Every other day she would visit me in my home. Sometimes with damp hair, sometimes with ink on her fingers, always carrying a silence that felt like a question – like a story in itself.
I continued to change for her, not in my words, which were fixed, but in the way I held them, the way I imagined them spilling out if she ever opened me. I shifted my weight on the shelf, pressing closer towards her, towards the light. Day after day, night after night I would rehearse the story I would tell when she finally chose me, though I knew it would be the same story as always. Only, with her eyes moving across me, it would feel anew. There was a part of me that wondered; if I showed her the smallest parts of me – she would not only read the lines, but also the space between them.
And if she even cared to look, if she would enjoy the story I held.
The next few years passed me by, until the stolen glances and sad eyes were all that would tide me along until the next day. Her visits became scarcer, I realised. And I almost never saw her tucked away on that red throne anymore. Instead, she took up a desk opposite my shelf, her long hair dangling over papers and spreading through ink which left permanent marks on her fingers and palms. Once a week, she would return to that spot in the library – her spot. I chose to ignore others who sat in her chair, and wrote on her desk, and splattered ink over her workspace.
She was my downfall disguised as a deity, and she knew it.
She could now reach the top shelf, and I would watch in jealousy as her nimble fingers grazed the backs of others, but never me. Though she read less these days, and from what I had gathered, preferred instead to create her own stories, there were still books she would open and laugh at. Books she would weep over and books which left her staring into the abyss of nothingness when the light outside faltered into darkness. I watched anxiously as her eyes grew weary, and her hair was cut shorter. I examined her as every part of her essence changed, as the way she walked straightened, and her spine turned stiff with responsibility. But it did not wither her. She changed in every way a person could change, but she was still the same bright-eyed girl who had graced my resting place years before – honouring me with her beauty and solemness.
I had not been touched in 10 years when she finally let her feet lead her thin body toward my shelf. I felt my spine straighten, my ink throb. This was the moment I had rehearsed for in the dark. When it rained, when it shone, when it was too loud to hear myself think and when it was too quiet to be left alone with my own thoughts. Every story I had heard, every story I had told – had all been in preparation for this. My pages trembled at the brush of air she left behind, and when she reached me, I was finally able to see her for who she was. Only now, was she close enough that I could count the freckles on her face. I could smell the faint lavender shampoo she used in her golden hair, and the honey-smelling soap she used to scrub her body and hands free of ink. I could see her clothes, ruffled with dust and years of life – see the necklace she wore, all 6 points of the star blunted and worn. Her eyes looked me up and down, and though I could see the smile lines which riddled her cheeks, her eyes, the corners of her mouth – she did not smile at me.
Instead, she paused. Fingers hovering above me, so close I swore I could feel her warmth, the heat that I had longed for all these years. Every fold of me shook – trembled in anticipation to tell her the story which I held in my pages.
Her hand rested for a heartbeat, brushing lightly over my cover, and I held my breath, every word I contained ready to spill into her hands. I imagined her soft exhale, her light laugh, the way her head would tilt when she read over the pages – none of which, she would skim. I could taste the shiver of delight, the quiet reverence as she opened me and read everything I had been waiting to share.
But it never came.
I watched as her fingers lingered for only a second longer, and then, with a careful tilt of her wrist she instead grabbed another book. The one she had been holding under her arm. Its cover was a warm brown with gold lettering which sparkled across the cover, brighter than any smile I had ever seen her bear. Then she held up her arm and carried its pages closer to my spine. It was here that I read the name of her own work, the story that was held by pages newer than mine, nicer than mine. I Remember.
I watched as she got closer to me than any had dared in 10 years. And then –
She placed it beside me.
The weight of her book pressed lightly against my back cover, a soft thud against my leather. I felt the closeness, the warmth of possibility – but still, she did not open me. But I felt her eyes strip me, scan over my corners and indents. I held my breath as she read my title, glancing briefly at the cover. My pages shivered.
I am the story she cannot stomach. The truth she refuses to meet. After all this time, I am the story of shame she cannot hold. She will never see me, for I am the shadow which she fled from. My spine will never feel her hands.
It was as if I was breathing for the first time in 17 years, when I stopped and realised – I was never hers to read.
Beside me, her book pressed closer. I Remember. And for the first time in almost a decade, I did remember. Remember why I was so unloved, untouched. Why no-one dared to look at me, or dog-ear my pages, or lick the tips of their fingers before they read deeper into my soul. I finally saw myself for who I really was.
And as she turned her back, blonde hair whirling onto her other shoulder, I knew this was the last time I would see her. The letters, stamped cruel and sharp across my own spine, ached and burned against the warm brown leather of her story. Her world, her life. The truth landed like a weight on my back as I realised the reason she never chose me. The reason she would never open me.
I shivered, and for the first time I read my own title, really read it. And finally, I understood that my story and hers were inseparable.
Perhaps, my story had been hers all along. Perhaps, she knew of everything between my pages without ever having to take me off the shelf.
Mein Kampf, after all, was not everyone’s story to touch.
Author: Maddie Filz
Maddie is a young writer from the northwest coast of Tasmania. She spends most of her spare time reading, especially fantasy, romance, and the occasional classic. Wanting to experiment with writing from the perspective of an inanimate object, giving a voice to something usually silent, she chose a book as her narrator and left out dialogue. The story was inspired by the idea that books not only hold stories but also witness the people who come to read them. Stories have always been her way of exploring new worlds and perspectives, which naturally led to her writing her own.
