The Last Book Ever Written

What if an entire generation of children don’t care about library cards? What if they don’t understand library quiet, and rainy afternoons choosing all the stories there are to read? What if we lived in a time with more writers than readers, and little by little, people just stopped reading?

What if school boards and state governments got to decide which books can be in the library and which books cannot? What if the kids just don’t care anymore and would rather watch TikTok anyway? What if our eyes and our brains changed because of the amount of time we’re in front of a screen? What if we grew numb to one another?

During the Last Great War, my Crone sisters and I ran to the woods, where we hid contraband. We buried boxes of precious paper and pens, now banned across the country. Publishing houses were shut down by the government, and libraries were burned to the ground My sisters and I built a lean-to against a large Mother Oak and measured out the provisions we’d brought. Our hair grew long and matted. Our hands became dry. The King’s army of JUST-ICE, sometimes rode into the forest at night, and we learned to cover our lean-to with branches and bramble so that our home just looked like part of the landscape and we’d remain safe.

Only when the moon was full, and the waters were still, did we pull out our blank notebooks, paper and pens. One last book. Let us write one last book, a book about preserving kindness and a humanity that cares about helping others. A book someone will find two hundred years from now and remark, “…there were people who knew what humanity was, and their intent and energy kept the goodness in humankind alive. They wrote about the slow fade of a once great democracy, of the people by the people for the people.

Before books were banned.

Before they burned the libraries down.

Before they locked up writers.”

Buried deep in the forest, the old Crones inspired others, because their stories could not be contained. And people outside of the forest began to make poems. Prose. Journalistic accounts. And two hundred years later when “they” that survived found the pens and paper and small notebooks, scattered among our bones on the forest floor, they wept at the truth: We have always been connected by our stories. We need each other.

When the blank paper was filled with our accounts, our history still being formed, we wrapped our work in scarfs and fabric and tied them with string. We gently placed them between the roots of great grandmother trees covering them with earth and leaves. In the dark waters that pooled from streams and run off, we were shown it all: the corruption of power and money, and the hunger for goodness and civility

My sister Crones and I prayed someone, someday would find what we’d chronicled, the cautionary tales of a society that stops reading, doesn’t value thinking, and doesn’t know how to listen. So together we wrote the last book ever written; a book of everything we could recall about decency and kindness. A book about how to be with each other.

Two hundred years later, someone would find our bones and make graves for us, under soft earth where wildflowers bloom in spring. Someone would read our last book and know there were then, and are now, people who will always raise up love and goodwill. Someone will survive us.

Just before the last bit of earth, covered our remains, that unknown someone would whisper: “in the end, beauty and love always saves us.” The last book ever written was rewrapped and pulled close to the someone’s heart, before they walked away. And finally, we rested in peace.

I live in a house filled with books, and always have. Books feed my imagination, teach me about things I find interesting. They entertain. They make me feel and ponder, and they inspire. Tell me about the books you love, or the books you write or want to write… let’s have a conversation.