Books and Apologies
Maybe there’s another story here. One about a family of books, the ones that were left behind, abandoned in corridors and unwanted reserves, their spines bent and titles faded. I imagine them as kin, bound by glue and stitching. But also memory. By the soft hush of pages once turned with reverence. And now they lie there out in the dirt, crowded in white plastic bags, suffocated by dust and disregard, stories pressed against stories, all gasping for air.
It was natural, almost organic, for them to take out their cameras and phones when the students found them in the corner. Documenting their presence like witnesses to a silent collapse. 500 already processed for recycling. Another 2,500 still waiting for something like mercy.
How quickly books become waste. How easily knowledge is discarded when it no longer fits the architecture of modern pride. We could follow one family of books. Exiled from their shelves, confused, betrayed. Not by strangers, but by the very institution they believed would protect them.
And then there were the apologies. Perfectly polished, but tiring to tread through. Their statement was hardly addressed to us, their eyes never looked through the lens. They looked just below it in fact. Reading from words softened and approved, shaped over sleepless meetings by people who have never touched the bruised edge of guilt. People too busy defending themselves to notice the harm. Because what is it about institutional remorse that feels more like theatre than truth?
I remembered there was a kind of poetry in their voice, empty and eloquent. Like overhearing a love letter written for someone else. Like watching a man recite grief he doesn’t feel, simply because the fire had already reached his feet. Simply because the knife felt too close to cut through his career.
Why is it so hard to just be human? To simply falter and let life pass. To say "I’m sorry" and mean it with your whole body. With that slump of shame on your shoulders. With your hands open, letting them tremble. With a silence that follows because no excuse will do, and no excuse is needed.
We all know that's what sincerity looks like, that’s when we begin to believe it. When apology is not a strategy, but instead a wound being shown. Open and bruised, with enough time to heal.