The first thing I have for you today is my story Davy’s Toy Box, which is Every Day Fiction’s story of the day. You should read it, for not only is it enjoyable in story-terms, but I have it on good authority that reading Davy’s Toy Box is good for your overall cardio-vascular health. So, if you’ve been skipping the gym lately, I think my story can help.
Heading in the direction of Blog Gate today you may notice the way is littered with an odd assortment of paper products — playing cards, matchbook covers, old receipts and envelopes and sticky-notes. That’s because I’m expounding on the overlooked phenomenon of bookmarks, how they accumulate, how they disappear, and how some of them rise to become sentimental favorites and others — well, others are just bits of paper.
Get more than one of these unfinished books together — I have a shelf for this — and you’ll see a different pictures. Depending on what you use as a bookmark, of course, your unfinished collection with all its sprouting bookmark-ends may resemble a thicket of trees, or a perhaps a flotilla of sailing vessels jostling in harbor. But what I see are protuberant, taunting tongues — a grand razzberry emanating from each volume, salvoed in contempt of my lack of perseverance.
Oh, and how about the circle of Hell reserved for book offenders?
And, given that so many of the world’s small, flat objects function adequately as bookmarks, I’m always confounded by dogears. Marginalia I can understand, though it is not my practice, as it can create a second and sometimes interesting dialogue between book and reader(s), but dogears are pure defacement. I suspect there is a circle of hell populated by turners of book corners — perhaps they busy themselves getting the crease out of a zillion pages while their fellow offenders, book store employees, spend their eons of torment trying to scrape the price label sticky gum off of a trillion dust jackets. It’s a pleasant thought.
And click here for ‘On Bookmarks’
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I thought “Davy’s Toybox” was a blast–there’s a lot of story going on there for a flashfic.
Thanks James!