Sometimes the rewards are not so fanciful: ⁰ Snorkel with me (Madeline) off Molokini to spot the Hawaiian state fish-the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. ⁰ Tea with me (Madeline) in a lighthouse in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of a hurricane. ⁰ Picnic with me (Madeline) in a pollen-filled field of poppies, lilies, and endless man-in-the-moon marigolds under a clear blue summer sky. This is the section that takes me the longest time, and I vary it with each book. There’s no one who needs reminding that the forgotten book on his or her shelf belongs to me. I rarely have visitors, and so there’s no one to lend my books to. There’s no one else here except my mother, who never reads, and my nurse, Carla, who has no time to read because she spends all her time watching me breathe. My second task is to write my name on the inside front cover. When a new book arrives, my first task is to remove the wrapping, a process that involves scissors and more than one broken nail. I imagine each book traveling on a white conveyor belt toward rectangular white stations where robotic white arms dust, scrape, spray, and otherwise sterilize it until it’s finally deemed clean enough to come to me. I would like to see the machine that does this. They come to me from Outside, decontaminated and vacuum-sealed in plastic wrap. The books are all brand-new hardcovers-no germy secondhand softcovers for me. In my white room, against my white walls, on my glistening white bookshelves, book spines provide the only color.
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