Water Systems for Beginners.
I pull them out and flip through the pages. Notes scribbled in the margins. Sections highlighted and pages marked with a fold. I return them and shift my attention to the shelf below, where the subject shifts.
Basic Repairs and Simple Machines.
Foundations of Chemical Reactions.
Basic Laboratory Methods and Measurements.
Useful things. Things learned because they were needed.
Then art, tucked in without ceremony on the bottom shelf.
A Study of Light and Shadow.
Charcoal and Ink.
Nature and Natural Pigments.
I glance back at her. She’s watching me intently, as if unsure what I’ll make of this.
“You don’t stick to one thing,” I say.
“No. I didn’t have the luxury to.”
I slide the book in my hands back into place. “You like learning.”
“I do.”
There’s no pride in it. No self-consciousness either. Just fact.
The glass cases on the shelves to the left are the sort meant to house insects or small amphibians.
“What do we have here?”
I peer into the smallest glass sanctuary and find grasshoppers and crickets, along with one lone praying mantis who clings motionless to a branch, so perfectly camouflaged that at the right angle it vanishes from sight.
The next enclosure holds frogs—small, alert things pressed close to the glass, throats pulsing faintly as they breathe.
The last case is the largest, and inside, coiled in the corner, near a shallow pool of water and a rock, is a massive horned lizard, thick-bodied and frozen in place, its skin mottled and ancient-looking. Its eyes are half-lidded as if nothing in the world has ever rushed it.
“Insects and animals with a tendency to leap, as well as this lazy desert dweller,” I remark, a chuckle slipping out. “Friends of yours?”
She fidgets, then offers a small, almost shy smile. “You could call them that. They remind me,” she murmurs, “that life, all life, is precious.”
I nod, studying the enclosures again.
They’re alive because someone chose to keep them that way.
And that tells me so very much about her.
“I don’t take life lightly, you know,” I say while turning. “I never have.”
I glance down at my hands, as if they might still remember what life it’s been asked to draw back. “There are moments I wish the burden belonged to another. Moments I would gladly set it aside if I could.”
“So why don’t you?”
I lift my gaze to hers. “That’s not possible.”
