Tsundoku

by johannespunkt

When you die, the room you’re in necessarily becomes a library. There are more shelves than you remember, and packed two layers thick on these shelves are all the books you promised to read but never got around to, each one you bought but forgot. There is wall where there used to be doors. Curtains fall over the windows. You sit down to read the books, one by one, until your thumbprint is on every page and you have lived all the lives you wanted. There will be a door where there were walls, and you are allowed to leave.