Three Days of Happiness

108
printed out at school to look for places to spend time until night
fell.
“Public library” caught my eye. Ever since I visited the school library
this morning, a faint desire to read had been bubbling up in me.
It looked like a neat little library on the outside, but one step inside
told me it was a horribly old place.
It had a strong smell, and was dirty like an abandoned school
building. But the books were arranged all right.
I’d been thinking about what sorts of books I’d like to read before I
died. Or put otherwise, “what kind of book could possibly be useful
right before death?”
I figured I would only read those books. I didn’t want to read one
that had essentially lost its value at this point and regretfully think,
“What was so enjoyable about reading this?”
Maybe it would have been different a month later. But then,
my choices were Paul Auster, Kenji Miyazawa, O. Henry, and
Hemingway. Not particularly interesting picks.
All the books I took were short ones, probably not because I
necessarily liked those better, but because I just didn’t want to read
any long stories. I was unsure if I had the energy to tackle a story
longer than a certain length.
While I sat reading O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi, Miyagi moved
from sitting in front of me and watching to beside me, and looked
at the page I was on.
“Wanting to try observing and reading at the same time?”, I asked