then kissing each other, then sad
Story 9. Feral Books
Author: Inrasara
Published on: 12/2/2015 3:34:49 PM

With no one left to pass them along, the

handwritten manuscripts lie strewn neglected relics – books

made feral. Books which cannot find a single

reader, never again to be turned open a single

 

time – feral books. Books corralled and chased off,

persecuted, stashed away buried in the moment of

evacuation, books hung worn away, left forgotten

lying covered in dust – feral books. Books with no

 

children to tend to their memory, millions of

words utterly dead stuffed in a ciet – feral books.

No one rewrites by hand, the word lovers

have lost inspiration, have grown hand weary, misty eyed,  

 

exhausted – feral books. Father said

words are not to be read loudly

before the sun raises its head, they are

diseased – voices made feral. With pages

 

gone feral, with all the heaps of text written by

hand gone wild.


translated by Alec Schachner

- photo by Jacques Smit

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