Dear Perry, today I sat in a park for a while, looking for you and the strangers that

walk by.

A woman passed me humming.

I couldn't stop the thought that the two of you could make a perfect harmony.

There were so many people reading at that park.

I felt embarrassed I didn't have my own book.

I walked around for a while and found a memorial.

The park was dedicated to the local librarian.

An old woman asked if I had forgotten my book.

I said yes on impulse, gazing at the three statues on the memorial before me.

A young woman reading to a child and an elder.

The woman said the sculptor had done a fine job, keeping the same face through the ages, the same love for literature.

I looked closer to find she was right, and in that same moment, I realized the woman's voice no longer sounded so old.

I turned to where she stood to find a child holding out her book to me, smiling.

Here, you can read mine. The library has more copies anyway.

I took the book and she walked away, past the bench I sat on earlier.

I read, for a little while at least.

It was a well-worn flimsy thing,

but the familiar face of Gardini-Plex stared out at me from its pages.

She and Just Jones fired netguns on spaceships beside the intrepid moxie.

I tried to take in their harrowing adventure, but I couldn't help but notice this was a volume

you didn't have, one of their stories you hadn't read yet.

...