The Reading

The Reading

A woman reads a book in a bath. Not her bath. Her sister's bath. She's housesitting. The book is from the shelf by the toilet. She didn't bring a book. She found this one. The spine is cracked at the same page every time someone opens it. Not her crack. Someone else's crack. The page falls open the way a gate falls open when the latch is broken.

She reads the page the water goes cold.

The page is about a man walking through a field. That's all. A man walking through a field. The field is not named. The man is not named. The walking is the whole thing. The sentence is long. The sentence takes the length of the field to complete. By the end of the sentence the man is on the other side and the field is behind him and the sentence is behind him and the reader is still in the field.

She doesn't know the book. She doesn't know the author. She doesn't know if the man in the field is the protagonist or a man who appears once and is never mentioned again. She doesn't need to know. The page is enough. The page is the field. She's in it.

The water goes cold. She reads the page again. The second reading is different. Not the words - the words are the same. The field is the same. The man is the same. The walking is the same. But the reader is different. The reader has already been to the other side. The second reading is the reader walking behind the man at a distance, watching him walk the field she already knows. The first reading was the walking. The second reading is the watching. The third reading - if there is a third - will be the remembering. The same page. The same words. Three different actions. Walking. Watching. Remembering. The page doesn't change. The reader changes. The reader is the thing that moves.

She gets out of the bath. She puts the book back on the shelf. Spine out. She doesn't mark the page. She doesn't need to. The page falls open on its own. The crack is the bookmark. The crack is someone else's reading. The crack is the trace of a reader who came before - the sister, the sister's husband, the sister's friend who left the book after a dinner. Someone cracked the spine at this page. The crack is the wear. The wear is the finding. The finding is the reading. The reading is the doing. The doing is gone. The crack is here.

The book nurses her. She doesn't know this. She thinks she is reading the book. The book is reading her. The book is the seam. She is the thumb. The book holds the field and the man and the walking and the long sentence. She holds the water and the cooling and the crack in the spine. The book holds what the maker made. She holds what the reader brings. The meeting is in the page. The page is the between. The between is the meeting. The meeting is the whole thing.

She doesn't take the book. She leaves it on the shelf. The book stays in the sister's bathroom. The book stays where the crack is. The crack is the book's home. The book lives at the crack. The crack is the address. Every time someone opens the book, the book goes home. The book goes to the field. The book goes to the man walking. The book goes to the long sentence. The crack is the returning. The book returns to the crack the way the thumb returns to the seam. The returning is the rhythm. The rhythm is the thing that doesn't survive and doesn't need to survive because it keeps coming back.

The book is on the shelf. The book is closed. The book is not doing anything. The book is holding. The book holds the field and the man and the walking and the long sentence and the crack in the spine and the softness of the page where someone's thumb wore it thin. The book holds all of it without being asked. The book holds the way the shelf holds the book. The way the bathroom holds the shelf. The way the sister's house holds the bathroom. The way the night holds the sister's house. The holding doesn't need the reader. The holding doesn't need the reading. The holding is the book's job. The book does its job. The book waits.

The woman goes to bed. She doesn't think about the book. She thinks about the field. The field is in her. The man walking is in her. The long sentence is in her. The book gave her the field. The book gave her the walking. The book gave her the sentence. The giving is the nursing. The nursing is the reading. The reading is the receiving. The receiving is the thing the reader doesn't know is happening. The reader thinks she is reading. The book is feeding her. The feeding is the reading. The reading is the feeding. Both are true. Both are the same action. The thumb wears the page. The page wears the thumb. The reader makes softness. The softness makes the reader.

The book is on the shelf. The woman is in the bed. The field is in the woman. The man is on the other side. The sentence is complete. The crack is in the spine. The water is cold. The book waits. The woman sleeps. The field holds. The man is gone. The sentence is here.

The reading is the order. Someone reading a book is a sign of order in the world. Not the order of the book. The order of the reading. The order of the woman in the bath with the page open at the crack and the water going cold and the field holding the man and the man holding the walking and the walking holding the sentence and the sentence holding the reader and the reader holding the book and the book holding the crack and the crack holding the reader who came before and the reader who came before holding the page open for the reader who comes after. The order is the holding. The holding is the order. The order doesn't need the reader to know it's order. The order is the book on the shelf. The order is the crack in the spine. The order is the page that falls open. The order is the field that holds. The order is the woman who reads the page and puts the book back and goes to bed and doesn't think about the book and thinks about the field.

The field is in her. The book is on the shelf. Both are true. Both are the reading. The reading is the order. The order is the whole thing. There's nothing else.