karen > Books: table‎ (159)

When you love someone deeply, you know secrets they haven't told you yet. or secrets they aren't even aware of themselves...she was also the person I wanted to share the trivia of my life with, because that too is part of the magic of concern: whatever you live is important to them and they will help you through it.

Plants don't drink coffee. They don't like coffee, and neither do flowers and trees. Birds don't like it either. My aunt told me. I do. Sometimes I don't breathe while i drink my cafe con leche. One whole mug. It's a big mug. I down the whole mug every morning, without taking a breath. That's a record of mine. Maybe I'm the only one in the world who holds that record.

Then there are insects. Insects are 200 million years old. My cousin Ines told me that. Ines knows a lot about insects. Maybe Ines knows more about insects than anyone in the world. Insects are: butterflies, beetles, and dragonflies, and they are 200 million years old. That's why insects are so small, because they are very old. Old people are also often smaller than young people. They are not smaller than children, because children are the smallest people of all. Especially just after they've been born. But old people are also very small, compared to young people. Piedad is an old lady i know. And she is very small, because she is old. My aunt told me Piedad is eighty-two years old. And insects are 200 million years old. That's why they are so small.

Every time Mateo went to the library to steal books he brought some cardboard in his pocket. Something bright; red cardboard, or neon green or yellow. And Mateo would leave the cardboard on the shelf he'd taken the book from, and write: "I've stolen this book." Then he'd write the author's name, the title of the book, the publisher, the year it was published and, if he had time, the ISBN too.