It was midnight. The stars glimmered faintly in the sky. I was standing beside so many of my friends in a wooden shelf. The bookshop was closed and I just couldn’t stop waiting for the sun to rise and visitors to come to buy me.

It had been almost a month since I came into this shop and I had become so bored by now. I had also made friends here, but some had left as they had found permanent homes and there were still some like me waiting everyday to be bought. I was so anxious that I desperately wanting someone to buy and read me, enjoy the beauty of my words and become captivated by the story I tell.

The next morning, the sun rose with immense beauty, the clouds scattered in the sky with soft birds chirping. The shop opened and Mr Amir came in striding confidently in his black coat. He flickered on the light switches and moved behind the counter, sat down and began checking the names of the books on his list and ordering more.

And people came and went, some came closer to where I was and then turned ... I felt dejected. But then my heart leaped with joy and I fizzed like a can of soda with ecstasy as a soft hand got hold of me and took me out from the shelf I was resting on.

It was of a cute little girl, smiling cheerfully and waving me in the air, screaming to someone standing near another stand, “This is it dad! Here, see this daddy!”

I was so delighted that someone finally wanted me. I had an owner! Just then, my master took me, peeled the price tag from my cover and put me into something transparent, maybe a new dress for me! But then everything went white! Oh, I screamed and screamed. I cried for help but it was useless, nobody seemed to notice me.

After 20 minutes or so, I was released from that suffocating white jail — it turned out to be a plastic bag though. The girl took me in her room and opened me, she smiled while reading me.

She read me, slowly, steadily and with extreme joy. I felt satisfied. I could have cried too. Then she took a bookmark and put inside me and kept me on a new shelf! It was dark brown and polished, I found it to be smoother than my previous home.

In a little while, I saw this white kitty of my owner jump up on the shelf and sniffed the things on it, including me. I got furious as I didn’t like this act of hers, I wanted to call my owner, but she was not in view. The cat scratched me, I got hurt. Then the cat pushed me with her paw, I fell on the ground with a loud thump.

As I fell, my pages flipped open and some pages got bent. I was cursing the white kitty! Just then my owner peeked into the room and ran inside to save me from the dreadful kitten. That moment literally horrified me.

Days were going fine till one day when my own owner accidentally splashed chilled cold orange juice on me. I shivered with cold and cried the entire time.

I was cleaned and dried but some of my pages turned orange, dry and creased. It was then I realised that being a book is not easy.

But, helping others by being a book is fabulous! And this I learnt one day, when my owner took me to her school and read me aloud in her class. Everyone clapped in the end. I was stunned.

Those were the moments I realised how powerful books could be. My owner read me and learnt how to treat others with kindness and how to be generous. It made me think about how a book can actually change a person’s life because after reading me, my owner started to help the needy, speak politely and became generous!

Oh well, the power was of the message I carried, my name is “Lessons of life” and I’m all about teaching people acts of kindness.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 15th, 2019