The book rested inertly on the coffee table. Its title gave little information to interested eyes that dared to read it - Naked! Curiously, there was no name of the author on the cover, only the silhouette of a body on a golden yellow background.
The man who had just sat down opposite him poked at it, first with his gaze, and then with his right index finger that wandered over the cover caressing the enigmatic volume. There was a relationship established between the inert object and the curious man. Both knew that the distance between them would not last. They were thirsty for each other. The curious man stretched out his arm and slowly brought his hand towards the yellowed edge of the book, however, before he could reach the white door on the opposite side of the room, a woman appeared and called his name. The man retracts his arm and almost automatically stands up, dividing his gaze between the book and the impatient woman who was waiting for him, clinging to the doorframe.
The sleeping book remained in its position, waiting for a new opportunity, it needed to be read, devoured, chewed by someone's soul.
Time passed without him knowing how to measure it. The door opened again. The man left and was accompanied by his wife to the exit door. Before he left, he took one last look at the book that was watching him from the coffee table.
The days went by. The book had changed position a few times. Other hands touched it and leafed through it. No one actually read it. There was a clear preference for magazines. The book, however, despite feeling used and manipulated, no longer mattered. His memory was of that man who had once enamored him. Would they have another chance? he thought between the lines. Only time would tell.
One certain day while he was resting from what he contained, he was caught brutally. The woman who was opening and abducting those who sat on the couch, had taken him from his long abode, the coffee table in the waiting room. She had inserted him standing among the other sad volumes that were already there, and so he spent his days, watching those who came and went through the gap in the spine.
His days were less warm. The caresses were no more. It was just a crack in the tangle of unread words that filled that bookshelf. When hope faded, he was surprised by the entrance of the man who had conquered him long ago.
The curious man sat down in the same place he had been last time. He looked at the coffee table, then leaned over to look at the bookcase underneath, turned and looked for something in the bookcase on the side of the sofa. The book knew he was looking for it. He tried to speak, but his words were not meant to be spoken by him. Silence consumed that period when he could see it, but could not warn it.
The book saddened along with the also intermingling of the curious man's countenance. They were there, close, but also distant. The book read that curved body as it had never read any other. It was enchanted by its stories, registered in the glow that escaped from its mournful gaze. It wished at that moment that a record had been born so that it could play its words for him, and thus, who knows, make him dance.
Moments later the white door opens. The woman clings to the doorframe and vocalizes the curious man's name. He gets up and follows her into that unfamiliar room. He stays there for long moments. Until he leaves and disappears out the door, never to return.
Days passed. For the book, it no longer mattered how many.
One day it found itself thrown into a box.
Taken away in the dark.
Ground up.
Recycled.
Finally, silent.
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