The Map That Leads to You

by J.P. Monninger

“A book is a companion, though. You can read it in a special place, like on a train to Amsterdam, then you carry it home and you chuck it on a shelf, and then years later you remember that feeling you had on the train when you were young. It’s like a little island in time. If you love the book, you can give it to someone else. And you can discover it over and over, and it’s like seeing an old friend. Can’t do that with a digital file.”

“What’s the opposite of a romantic? I’ve always wondered.” “An accountant, I guess. A person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Have you ever heard someone say that books are places we visit and that when we run into people who have read the books we have read, it’s the same as if we had traveled to the same locations? We know something about them because they have lived in the same worlds we have lived. We know what they live for.”

“Weltschmerz,” I said, feeling the heaviness of the word as it passed my lips. “German for world weariness and pain. It’s the idea that physical reality can never meet the demands of the mind.

“Weltschmerz. Unnamed dread and fatigue of the world. That’s the definition.”

“Of course it’s crazy. Everything is crazy. The whole world is crazy. Didn’t you know that, Heather? Didn’t you know everyone is an imposter and there are no real adults in the next room?”

You said life happens here and now, and it’s a fool’s bargain to let something good go now in the hope of something better at a later date.

It was time to go home. I wanted to see my parents and Mr. Periwinkle, and I wanted to be in one place for more than a night or two. Travel sheds skin, and it takes time at home to grow it back.

her folded glasses against her eyes and looked