Every box of books that comes into this house must pass inspection.
It’s not dramatic. It’s hardly noticeable to anyone else. But to me, it feels like a quiet hinge in the day. Before I reach for the scissors or decide where these books might end up on the shelves, something else has to happen first. I’ve learned not to argue with it. Rituals, after all exist whether we formally agree to them or not.
My old blind cat makes her way over. Slowly. Deliberately. She knows the shape of this place by heart and doesn’t need her eyes to navigate it. She stops beside the box and lowers her head. There is an inspection. This part is non-negotiable.
She circles and smells the cardboard, lingering as if the books inside are speaking in a language she understands better than I do. Paper, glue, dust, time. Faint traces of other rooms, other hands, other lives. She pauses longer on some boxes than others. I don’t ask what she’s picking up on.
I can tell you she takes this job very seriously. And she always dresses for the occasion; she's a tuxedo cat, after all. Some roles require a certain level of formality.
Only once this is done I start unpacking. She waits nearby. Not far. Close enough to be involved and weigh in from time to time. I take a book out. Then another. She shifts her weight. Clears her throat. Reminds me that the box is the point.
When the box is finally empty she climbs inside.
She circles, testing the corners, folds herself into the shape of the box, and settles. This is her favourite part. The claiming of it. The becoming part of it.
We talk a lot about the books that change us, and they do of course, but there’s also something to be said about the ones that don’t. The ones that quietly become part of a place, part of a rhythm, part of an unexpected ritual. It’s not very literary, I know. But secondhand books aren’t really about polish. They’re about contact. About presence. About the quiet continuation of things that refuse to disappear.
This small ritual exists because The Story Station exists. Because books continue to move through this space. Because people choose to support a secondhand bookshop that runs alongside a life, one where a blind cat is convinced that every delivery is, at least in part, meant for her.
She has many names. Too many, probably. Some affectionate. Some ridiculous. Many borrowed from literature, because once you start seeing a cat as a character, it’s hard to stop.
Every time you order a book, recommend the shop, or quietly return for another browse, you keep this small world turning. Books are handed forward. Boxes empty. A cat gets to smell the stories and sleep inside their shells for a while.
Do you have a pet with a name borrowed from the greats? A character, a writer, a book you loved enough to let it follow you home?
Hit reply and tell me. I’d love to hear the story behind the name.
PS.Thank you as always for being here. For the reading, the browsing, and the gentle acceptance of feline supervision.