Not every mountain will be climbed, nor every lake swum. Certainly not every book will be returned. Most borrowed books are, in fact, never returned, so don’t lend ones that you care about. So that you don’t feel quite so bad about this, know also that most borrowed books are never read, either.
Kiera kept a library on her third floor. Once, she loaned a precious book to her friend Joanna. This book wasn’t really very valuable, just precious to her. She had found it by accident in a used book store while staying with her dying grandmother and had read aloud the hilarious adventures of a girl and her goat to the grandmother for several days before the end. Once her grandmother had laughed so hard, she couldn’t breathe, and Kiera was terrified that her book had precipitated her grandmother’s death. But the grandmother stayed alive until the last chapter was finished. The very next day, she died while Kiera and her mother stepped out to fetch some groceries. Kiera knew she had held on until the end of the book.
After an unseemly amount of time had passed since the loan, Kiera asked Joanna about the book. Joanna got a funny look on her face, but said she would return it the next day. But the next day, she came to Kiera and said that she was ever so sorry, but she had lost track of the book and would get her another copy. It was, of course, long out of print and even the internet used book market places did not produce any results. Joanna begged Kiera for forgiveness, and Kiera tried her best. Joanna was a good friend, after all, if a bit scatterbrained, and Kiera blamed herself for letting the book out of her sight. She couldn’t bring herself to ask if Joanna had even read it.
A couple years later, Kiera and Joanna were having lunch in a restaurant. Joanna started telling a story about a great wrong that had been done to her by another friend, a wrong involving lending her mother’s pearls to the other friend and those pearls having been lost. Joanna said she had cut this girl off entirely and would never speak to her again.
Kiera managed to finish the lunch, but then she went home and decided not to speak to Joanna again. Of course, they did speak because Joanna called her the next day. Kiera told her that she just couldn’t be friends anymore. She explained that she thought she had forgiven her about the loss of the book, but when she heard the story of the pearls, it all came back and she just didn’t want to be friends anymore.
Will they kiss and make up? It’s been a couple years, but Kiera and Joanna are both still alive, so one never knows what might happen in the future. However, Kiera doesn’t miss Joanna. At least, she thinks she doesn’t.
i've lost several books that way -- a friend so excited to read the book, borrows it then never returned. a couple of them even had the audacity to tell me they never borrowed it as they have not even read the book. needless to say, most of those people had been cut off, the few that remained can only hope to borrow a book from me when pigs fly. now, all my fiction books are on kindle and what i have in my shelves at home are history or reference books. if anyone wants to borrow a book, they will just have to sit by the window and read the book till they're finished. if they tell me i'm selfish, i say 'we're no longer friends'. and that is why i have very few friends. :-D
What an utterly fascinating image! I could stare for hours. FAV! As for your wonderful tale, a most thoughtful story. In my humble opinion, it is the giving not the getting that is more important.
I wonder what the book is called. Amazon is amazing with its collections! Great story - could be anyone's experience. I'm sure we all have a friend who because of their behaviour we don't speak any more! i do.
