The Warbler

by Sarah Beth Durst

This bus smells like stale coffee and peanut butter, mixed with the familiar odors of exhaust and urine that have seeped into the plastic upholstery of every bus I’ve ever been on. I have a window seat, which is the way I like it. I watch the houses flicker by and imagine the lives of the people who live in them. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends. I try to guess who is lonely and who wishes they were, based on only a glimpse:

bookstores have the same kind of familiarity, a comforting sense of Here you’ll find what you need. Even if all it offers is an illusion that lasts for a few hundred pages.

The best thing about books, at least for me, is that favorites can feel like home. Yet they’re portable and replaceable. Any copy will do. Even more, once you’ve read them, they’re part of you. You don’t need the actual book anymore. You can let them go without letting them go. It’s a rare and beautiful loophole in the rules that govern my life, and I’m grateful for it.

“You know, song lyrics are something we never leave behind,” I say. “We carry them with us even when other memories fade.”