She knew she was not getting any younger.  She told herself she needed to go for it, reach for it, take her turn.  Was it her turn?  When did she get in line?

She told herself it didn’t matter.  She woke up, stood up, and reached.

Nothing.

Her fingertips touched the smooth empty shelf.  She strained on the very tips of her toes, leaned forward.  Surely there was something to reach for, something on her shelf. Her body pressed, she willed for more, pushing her fingers just a bit more. She felt certain it was right there if she could just…

A tear spilled down her cheek as her bare heels hit the cold ground in defeat.  She had reached and there was nothing there, perhaps it was too late for her.  Someone else must have come and taken her life, her gift, the prize that sat on the high shelf.  More tears as she slid to the floor.

Through the glassy wet blurr of her disenchantment, she could barely make out the shelves below her coveted high landing.  She hadn’t noticed these lower shelves.  Nothing good, nothing worth having, ever sat on a lower shelf.  She had been told that her whole life.

She wiped her tears, ran her fingers along the dusty books of the lowest shelf, anchored one forward by it’s aged binding, and began to read.

That’s all from the laundry room.  Lover Lay Down.

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