Car boot sale

I know he loved me. I felt the thrill of excitement when he first found me, and bought me, and carried me home and read me straight through, without a break. He was my ideal reader and he made me feel like his ideal book. The connection between us was unique and inimitable. I also felt his sadness at our separation, when he had finished reading me, he was disappointed that I had to come to an end, he would like to have read me for ever and ever. He wanted to go on reading me; I know that, I could feel it.

So how could he be so cruel as to rip my shiny jacket off and put me on display between grubby headphones and an old chess set with two missing pieces? I thought our relationship was special, but now I felt cheated and used. He was trying to get rid of me, and for a derisory sum; not even a fraction of what I was worth, of what he paid for me in the first place.

It was cold and damp at the car boot sale. I longed for the luxury of the shag pile rug, the intimacy of the room with the closed curtains, the silence…

A young woman picks me up. She smiles at my first reader.

“Is this any good, then?” she asked.

“Wonderful. I couldn’t put it down. Very moving and extremely funny” he answered. “And cheap, too! You know how it is, I devour books, and I just don’t have the space to keep them all, no matter how much I’d love to. And anyway, I believe that books are meant to be read, and I would rather somebody else had a chance to read this one, and enjoy it as much as me, than stick it on a shelf like some kind of trophy".