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STILLS · Season 2 · Room 3

The Empty Shelf

A story about a spine.

  1. The Empty Shelf — still 1 of 10
  2. The Empty Shelf — still 2 of 10
  3. The Empty Shelf — still 3 of 10
  4. The Empty Shelf — still 4 of 10
  5. The Empty Shelf — still 5 of 10
  6. The Empty Shelf — still 6 of 10
  7. The Empty Shelf — still 7 of 10
  8. The Empty Shelf — still 8 of 10
  9. The Empty Shelf — still 9 of 10
  10. The Empty Shelf — still 10 of 10

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Read this story as text
  1. COVER: THE EMPTY SHELF · A story about a spine. · Five books on the shelf. Not one opened.
  2. 02/10: The book arrived in a brown envelope. No note. No return address. She did not look for one.
  3. 03/10: She placed it on the shelf with the others. The Collected Works of Rilke. His favourite. The one he had said she needed to read.
  4. 04/10: “I want to understand you,” she had said, the night they parted. “Read this,” he said. “Then you’ll understand everything.”
  5. 05/10: The shelf held five books. Each one a relationship. Each one unread.
  6. 06/10: At the end of the year, she walked past the shelf. Her hand reached out. She didn’t take the book down. She turned it around, so the spine faced the wall.
  7. 07/10: The shelf looked the same from the doorway. The titles were no longer visible.
  8. 08/10: A visitor asked about the shelf once. “To be read,” she said. The visitor moved on to the next room.
  9. 09/10: The shelf stood in the living room for three more years. The unread books became a curiosity. Then a decoration. Then something she stopped seeing altogether.
  10. 10/10: The book remained unread. The spine faced the wall. She dusted around it every Sunday. From the doorway, the shelf looked complete.

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