Goodbye Kindle.
It’s nearing midnight, the lights are off and I’m lying on my bed watching TV. I’m trying — and failing — to ignore the green pin-prick of light intruding on my periphery. I switch the TV off and lie back, trying to think of something pleasant before I drift off. This is an experiment — maybe imagining something nice (writing in a warm coffee shop while it’s snowing outside?) will keep nightmares at bay. Maybe. But then there’s that green glow reflecting off my bedside table. My Kindle’s fully charged. And now I have to pick it up and find a book. Click on the shopping cart. See recommendations. Get embarrassed with recommendations (way too much sci-fi/fantasy). Pick a book. Fall asleep midway through boy-becomes-wizard/knight/king book #230. God.
Forty-eight hours later…
The Kindle looks on from its corner on my bedroom floor — the monster under my bed. Silent reprimands for every second it lies discharged. Ha! it doesn’t know I’ve been to the bookstore today. My fingers smell of old books: salt for Kindle zombies, garlic for Paperwhite vampires.
I’ve decided to give my Kindle away. To pass it on to mum — she who taught me to read, and to read for pleasure. An Hephaestean gift of sorts. Ah, my poor Kindle weaned on sci-fi/magic, I wonder how it’ll deal with a sudden influx of New Age buddhism. Poorly I hope.
Six months on…
Its been five months since I presented mum my Kindle, a reverse pass of the torch with all the attendant ceremony — morning tea, gossip and silence. I’ve been reading fewer books, its true. Better ones? I hope so. I’ve read two books of poetry. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to read a poem and then re-read it. Savour every word, tease out meanings and just generally bask in whatever emotion the poet deigns to practice in. And then turn the page to find, lo! another.
What else has changed? My bookshelf is pleasantly full, no more patina of dust to welcome visiting fingers into a drawing contest. I’m a fixture in the sole English bookstore in town; the book-clerks even grant me a smile occasionally. Symptoms of a progressing social life. The looks I get from strangers now are far more appreciative too. It’s something to do with carrying a book I suppose. Or maybe its just that everyone can read the title; can verify that I’m not reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Major plus.
It’s next year now…
Well, actually it isn’t and I’m going to have to fill this in a year from now. I’m really still stuck on paragraph one, lying on my bed, writing on Medium and wishing my Kindle away.
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