The Seller

 

     The whole of him will not fit in this box. There is so much and even this one carton is almost too heavy to lift. I have assurances that I can dribble in with the rest, but these are the best. It wouldn’t be right to let them go where their pages would be dog eared or their backs broken by neglect. The others came quickly, landing upon the doorway and scrabbling through the relics of a life. While they pawed through bureau drawers, I searched, frantic to find the one to keep behind, the one his hands had known best. The one whose dry leaves he walked through until he fell like dust along the bound edge. I crept passed the bickering, concealing the one that held the most of him and put it in with slips and panties. No one would dare disturb a widow’s underthings.