lost & found

On the street, nay, worse! atop the rubbish bins I see a stray book. Aside from having being abandoned, it does not seem to have been ill-treated in whatever home it had been in last. It is fat and sleek, not very old, either, though not very young. It is a dictionary. I ruffle its pages. It purrs contentedly under my fingers. It seems really in very good condition (who would have orphaned it here? what heartless owner? someone moving away, no doubt, someone who didn't feel he had room for it in the new place), and it is fairly clean for something found nosing about near the bins. There are no marks on it, just two paper tags, one next to the definition of thesis and the other on the page including feral, feracious, ferine, ferly (noh! ferlig?), Fergus, Fenian, and Fenris.

I snap it shut and heft it again (it is hefty), pretending to weigh my options, but I'm fooling myself.

Swinging it up onto my shoulder, I set off again homeward, already picturing how I will rub it down with a damp rag and how well it will get on with my other books.