The Books

In Penn Fawn’s second short story, Solo, its main character, was the only book of its kind its author self-published shortly before he died.

Concern about his own mortality prompted Solo to plot an escape from a paper recycling facility he was taken to, after his deceased author’s apartment was cleared, and his books, amongst his other possessions, were either given away, or in Solo’s case, was left for garbage collectors to dispose of.

This marked the beginning of a daring adventure in which he eventually found a home at the Brooklyn Public Library, a place where his adventure didn’t end, but rather, only just began.

There was hardly anyone in Brooklyn, or its city, a placed called New York, or the state, which was also called New York, or the entire country, for that matter, that knew once a book was created, call it bound, that it was alive.

. . . books flapped their pages like butterflies do. The thing is, they were very secretive about it. Exceedingly so. It enabled them to levitate, plus they could steer themselves in whatever direction they had a mind to go.



They always waited until it was some ungodly hour of the night or early morning when no one was around before they felt it was safest to fly. This way, their secret would never be discovered.