The Binding

by Bridget Collins

I hadn’t belonged anywhere for so long, and now this room, with its smell of leather and glue, welcomed me.

Here the clock in the hall dredged up seconds like stones and dropped them again into the pool of the day, letting each ripple widen before the next one fell.

But the part of me that yearned for music and noise was the old, healthy part; I knew that silence, work and rest were what I needed now. Even if, sometimes, it felt so lonely I could hardly bear it.

We take memories and bind them. Whatever people can’t bear to remember. Whatever they can’t live with. We take those memories and put them where they can’t do any more harm. That’s all books are.’

‘May your darkness be quiet and the light come sooner than you need,’

Maybe I should have followed him; but somehow it went from too soon to too late, without the right moment in between.

The clock ticks, dropping seconds into the air like coins into a begging bowl.