nervous habit

So I’ve brought home boxes of stuff from my mother’s house, right? In some of the boxes are books I’ve mentioned on DIR. I flipped through The Many Colored Land and I thought, Maybe I didn’t actually read this. Then I looked at the paper edge opposite the binding. You can tell whether I’ve read a particular book by whether the pages are darkened. I fiddle with the pages as I read, which deposits oils from my skin, thus leaving a record of my progress, especially if my fingers have gotten inky from the text. I squinted at the book. Yes, there’s the smudge line. It’s about 2/5 of the way down the page. I must’ve read it.

I have the sequels. I could start over from the beginning. I could read the series all the way through.