#24

The Little Free Library’s Dream

written by Mathias Svalina

I am floating in Saturn’s rings. The rings are entirely made up of books. The ring that I am in is all cookbooks. And cookbooks are great & all, but I have grown tired of cookbooks. I am in need of stories of sorrow & tears. I gather myself up, take a deep, deep breath & leap out of my ring & into the next ring. The books in this ring are all books of sad poetry & I take my fill of sorrow & tears, until the tears have overfilled me & I am dripping with them. Again, I gather myself up. Again, I take a deep, deep breath & I leap into the next ring which is all picture books for toddlers. And when I leap into the next ring, it is all epics of historical romance. And when I leap into the next ring it is all guides to fixing the engines of classic cars & trucks. And the next ring is all travel guides to cities that no longer exist. And the next ring is all travel guides to Jupiter’s many moons. And the next ring is true-crime. And the next ring is a genre of book that is impossible to express in human words. And the next ring is books in which there is a circle drawn on every page & nothing else. And as I leap & leap & leap from ring to ring to ring, I never grow tired of finding whatever kind of book I arrive into the company of. Here, in Saturn’s rings, I am between one sea & another sea. In each book I sing birdsong. A peace I could not feel outside of books joins me & comforts me.