Sandpaper Skin

• Leia Casci, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2016

And here I slept, in this library labyrinth.
The palette of Oxford blues and mauves hugs the small town tightly. I always prefer the solitary life, stated well by the river of space flowing between the others and I. The years have certainly not forgotten me – wrinkled and ancient, with sandpaper skin.
Sometimes I’d look at the younger ones with green in my eyes – sometimes I was grateful that I had this protection binding me together from a lifetime of hardships.
The sui generis nature of these ones I call my family and friends follows closely. Like snowflakes, we were. Sometimes we liked to duck away under the covers from a beeping reality. Some of us longed to only bring others under our wings.
Perhaps some of us are more common than others. Some sync perfectly with each other, the way a sock and a shoe hold each other so closely.
I look past the crinkles and the bland oceans of grey that seem to surround. My heart burns with a longing to see the world that lies only just outside the glass. So many chapters have passed, yet I am so fragmentary. I know there are still remaining puzzle pieces out there for me. They call my name, whispering with soft voices of honey. Isn’t there more for me than withering and observing?
And then I remember than I am not the human I illustrate myself as. For I am forever a mere book.