Mark Millien

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dial tone All the leafy paper tickling his skin imparted no solutions. He wasn’t able to leech any wisdom from its inky weight. In retrospect it was probably counterproductive to dump half a dozen shelves worth of the second hand paperbacks section on top of himself. Catharsis is what he was aiming for but the whisky and doubt had probably muddled his targets. Breathing through brittle pages, with the fine overly handled texture of ancient dollar bills, had quickly lost its romantic appeal. It dawned on Nelson, only now, that he’d created just another mess that he would have to clean up.