All She's Done

(This story blends fiction and non-fiction elements.)

Five words. She has to turn her head sideways to read them. They run down the spine of the book that's sitting on the library shelf. She crouches and tilts the book, sliding it from its home. She holds it flat in her palm. The title is a memory. She is looking at me, like a portrait, holding that book. That’s how I see her. Her eyes never blink.

And the author of the five word title is dead. Dead and buried.

I want her to read the book. I know the book. I know the title. I wish I could read it to her. It's a beautiful book. She’s a beautiful book. I can’t separate them. Her eyes are the title. I read her. She looks at me from a picture. Only, she's not looking at me. What is she looking at? What is she thinking? She leans her face on her hand and stares up at me. Her hair is perfect. She is perfect. She is the book. It's a little book, but it would take so long to read it to her aloud. It means seeing her. Sliding her off the shelf. Feeling her weight in my palm.

I'm the one at the library. She’s telling me to buy her perfume. I am tempted, but I am more comfortable with books and words. Where was she when they took that picture? Does she go to libraries? I'm sure she does. Why wouldn't she? She's beautiful. Five words. 12345. All total. How many of those words are in this little book? I'll never know unless I check it out. Two weeks. It’s due back in two weeks. That’s hardly enough time.

I read once that there have been about a million words in the English language.

How many words does she know? Does it matter? No one reads her the way this book gets read. No one takes the time to read her. She has such sad eyes. Look at them. And they never shut. I doubt she's dead. But I don't know. I don't know when the picture was taken. Maybe she and the author are both dead. Maybe they died together. I'm pretty sure the author died in his bed in his home with his family around him. I'm pretty sure the girl is drinking cold coffee through a straw in a giant bed in a hotel room that could take her all day to destroy if she tried.

There's a suitcase on the couch. Her makeup's on the counter just outside the bathroom. All the things that need to be charged are charging. And she's waiting. There's an Uber. She has a job. She'll wear layers and layers with a baseball hat and a giant scarf. And when she gets to the place where they have called to come, they will undo her and take her apart and turn her into something that can shine.

Who wants their face touched like that? Who wants to be painted or sprayed?

There's a photograph of the author on the back of the book. He doesn't look painted or sprayed, but it does look like someone ran a brush through his hair. He's dead. He died long ago. Maybe it wasn't in his bed with his family. Maybe he drank himself to death. Maybe he died in a war. Maybe he had a heart attack at the grocery store.

As a young man, he was crammed in a landing boat. His life wasn’t guaranteed at all, and boys he knew for weeks had their faces shot off or their shoulders pierced with shrapnel. He survived. This was before the five word title. He saw action. He saw the dead souls walking like children. Their skin was soft and translucent. Like paper. Typing paper. He thought of these dying witnesses whenever he pulled a sheet out of his typewriter. One page closer to the edge. The soldiers caught some from falling off of the edge of life, but so many others were gone. Murdered ashes. Murdered children, too. He couldn’t save them. They fell before he got there to liberate them. It was too late to free them all. He made a vow.

She made her own promises. She knew that one day her pretty face was going to die, too. Dead in the camps or dead in a hotel room. Death is death. One day that pretty face is going to be old. A type of death in her business. She never risked her life by running off of a landing craft, but she took risks. Maybe when she is older her face will still be beautiful. Maybe it won't. Maybe one day she'll have to show people her old pictures just to remind herself that she used to be pretty. Pretty or not, one day she will die. There is no catching her then. His character would be foolish to try to catch death. Sometimes, however, the brain snaps and heals crooked. It wasn’t the character catching death, it was the author catching those narrow skeletons. Futile, yes but he made Holden try.

Maybe she'll be glad that it's all over. Glad to lose her beauty.

Maybe she'll have her own bed. And a garden. And a place where she likes to sit and watch the ladybugs come and go. And next to her on the bench in the garden will be a copy of the book. Five words. And she'll read the book again. A book she's read before. Because she can read fast. Those eyes do more than just stare and wait for the cameras to catch her. They do more than just make strangers think they are loved. Those eyes can actually love. They can look and blink and read and love. She stole the book from the library. She figured the world owed her that much, considering all she's done.

(Dedicated to the memory of my mother.)