The public library posted a photograph to its Facebook page of a young woman sitting in a window seat wearing, what appears to be, an Easter dress. One foot slipped delicately behind her ankle, she holds a sandwich plate in her lap. The caption explained that the photograph had been found tucked inside a book, presumably acting as a book mark. The librarians didn’t confide what book the photograph had been found in. They were wondering if any of their Facebook followers could identify the woman. There were a few comments added to the post, though nothing all that helpful and, eventually, the young woman’s photograph was pushed lower down in the feed by announcements of new e-books added to the collection and the upcoming Mommy & Me story hour. Once, I found a slip of paper inside a library book. It wasn’t a photograph but, instead, a grocery list:

Eggs – a ½ dozen
Macomber rutabaga
Box of decaf tea

A librarian living in central Massachusetts, Thomas O'Connell's poetry and short fiction has appeared in Thimble Magazine, Blink Ink, Hobart, and Paragraph Planet, as well as in Best Microfiction 2024.