Some number between one and five weeks ago (I have completely lost any ability to track time), I had to go to the pharmacy for a prescription. There are two dueling pharmacies in town, one across the road from the other. I go to the Guardian rather than Jean Coutu for prescriptions because I generally park on the Guardian’s side of the road.
But I also live in a town (really a province) with many senior citizens who have far more complicated drug regimes than I do, and so, depending on when one hits the Guardian, there may be a wait. So I grabbed my tiny kobo and shoved it in my tiny purse. The cover was in the bedroom and laziness prevented me from going up the four stairs and down the short hall and across the room, picking up the case, stuffing the kobo inside, and then reversing my steps back downstairs. So I didn’t. And I threw my keys in my purse too.
I did have to wait at the pharmacy. They have chairs, those cheap ones with the chrome frame and two vinyl, plasticky squares, one for the seat and one for the back. Where do chairs like that come from? I’ve never seen any for sale, yet these chairs seem to exist in every pharmacy waiting area, church basement, and legion hall in existence. Is there a warehouse of them that only businesses have access too?
I pulled out my kobo and my keys must have scratched the surface, down near the bottom, but not in the margins, still up enough to where words on the screen come up. Because there is a mark. I scratch it and lick my finger and rub it but it won’t come off. It’s under the screen, like some of the e-ink pouches burst.
Stupid kobo, I think. Not even a year old. Books don’t get ruined by being put in bags with keys.
But also my bag is too small for most books I read. So I wouldn’t have had anything to read but boxes of cough syrup if it weren’t for my kobo.
The mark is small, not even half a centimeter high, even thinner than it is tall. But if you look really hard, you can make out what it is.
A tiny giraffe.
The silhouette of a tiny giraffe.
I have the start of a safari on, literally, my kobo.