Inventory

We counted the books and this meant touching the books.  My hands dried out from the sponge of the covers.  Beep and then beep, the red laser eye utters its satisifaction when it registers one more book.  Only thirty thousand more to count.  Beep, and then beep, we gave the books over to the steady red eye and it liked the books, registered and tallied, book after book, one by one by one.