I bought a book fan.
Not at the bookshop. At the appliance store. It stood between the table fans and the dehumidifiers. A small sign beside it: for people who get overheated by thick novels.
I took it home.
Unpacked it. The manual consisted of one sentence: “Open a book and switch it on.”
I opened my thickest book. Page 247. The page I used to turn to, just to check whether everything worked out.
I switched it on.
Setting 1: it turned the pages politely. As if asking: may I?
Setting 2: it began waving the pages about. Suddenly my whole room smelled like a library in August.
Setting 3: the characters started chattering their teeth in the draught.
The main character stuck his head out between the pages and said, “Could you turn it down? We’re trying to knit an ending here.”
I turned it up to setting 4.
Then the entire story flew into the room.
The little things came first. A message saying “How are you?” drifted past my window. A cup of coffee that had already been made landed softly on my desk and stayed warm. A hand on a shoulder hovered for a moment, then flew back into the book.
I tried to catch them. But the harder I blew, the harder they blew back.
Eventually I switched it off.
The book fell shut. Not on a page. Exactly between two.
And there, in that narrow gap, was just enough wind to keep reading.
No hurry.
Just enough to let the next page turn by itself.