Five Books, None of Them Open
A stack of quiet spines on a rainy sill, and the particular pleasure of not choosing yet.
The sill, not the shelf
They are not a reading list. A reading list has opinions. These five came off the shelf because their spines were the colours of a wet day — cream, sage, sand, a grey-green, a slate — and because the window needed something that did not shine.
I have not opened them this week. That sounds like neglect. It is closer to hospitality. A closed book on a sill is doing a job: it keeps the rain company and asks nothing back except not to be knocked onto the radiator.
Spines that refuse to shout
Two of them have titles worn down to a rumour. I could look, but looking would turn the stack into a decision. There is a pleasure, easily mocked, in not choosing yet. The rain is already choosing the afternoon. I am content to let it.
An unread book in the right light is not a failure of character. It is a piece of furniture with a future.
Later, perhaps
Tonight I may take the slate one to the chair. Or I may not. The stack will look slightly wrong with a gap, which is how I will know the house has been used. Until then they can stand in for the reading I mean to do, which is sometimes as useful as the reading itself.
