100-Word Fiction: ‘Oh But To Read’

Oh but to read was the greatest thing. The bookshop with perfect spines aligned and that subtle weight in her bag as she carried the book home. She was almost nervous, not knowing yet what those pages would give. That smell of paper and ink, type pressed and clear. Paragraphs and paragraphs, indentations, page numbers, the merest comma. There were worlds in there, languages, experience, psychology. People, complex and doubtful, imperfect and human. She guessed love, hoped. Maybe despair. This story that would be part of her, not part. And then the first words, It happened on her way home