Ergo, the Ogre

The other day I was looking for something to read—something to hold in my hands rather than read from a screen. I wanted to touch the pages and feel the words on paper.

I wanted an old-fashioned book.

Do you ever miss the feel of holding a writer’s creativity in your very hands, knowing as a writer the sweat, heart and angst that the author pours into his/her craft? And the smell! Especially if the book is older and the edges of the pages are going yellow-to-sepia; it’s in its mustiest, old-library  glory.

Dog-eared corners, ink-smudged words, the anonymous fingerprint—a bonus.

I chose a favorite old book from the shelf and fanned its pages. Why do people do that, anyway?  Perhaps, like me, they are trying to catch that magical whiff. Either way, between the pages and close to the middle of the book were the crumbled remnants of a daisy.

That heart-wrenching, memory-stabbing daisy.