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The Little Book That Travels
It keeps finding its way into my bag
Today, I pulled out a small book from the row of books on one side of my work desk. This row is right up against the wall, and on it I line up books and papers. Various kinds of them, all mixed together. Some notebooks I can easily reach for scratch notes, some used papers with the backs still clean so I can write on them, some company books, some children’s storybooks, some serious to scratch.
And then there’s this small one, the smallest of them all, quietly slipped away in between. For some reason, its little corner was peeking out today, so I picked it up.
It’s a very small and thin book, only about half a centimeter thick, with brown book paper — the kind I love the most.
I opened the little book and found an old entry pass tucked inside, one I had completely forgotten about. It was for Kelimutu National Park in Ende, East Nusa Tenggara. The stamp date was 29 November 2019. That was six years ago. The entry fee printed on it was IDR 5,000 (around 30 cents USD). Then I noticed something else: there were actually two tickets, stuck together.
Maybe I had taken both mine and my friend’s, or maybe one of them just got carried along without me realizing it. This feels like finding a tiny time capsule pressed between pages.
