Der Bibliophile
by Nicola Davison
My timeworn lungs buckle, but I don’t want to close the window.
I push it wide open to be reacquainted with Freud, Kafka, and Hemingway as they rise, shifting and swirling to reach me. It stings to breathe them in, but still, I inhale every charred word.
Below the students and stormtroopers pledge their oaths and stoke the ceremonial bonfire. As flames and voices roar, I react—slam the window to its latch.
Karl Marx and Thomas Mann billow against the glass. I must let them in.
Nicola Davison is a writer from northeast England. She writes short fiction and relishes the challenge of telling a story in as few words as possible. Nicola’s daily writing companions include a badly behaved curly dog and a small herd of rescued guinea pigs.
Photograph of book burning, Berlin, Opernplatz, 10 May 1933, via Wikimedia Commons.
