No one is stealing my books

I drive an older vehicle. It’s paid off, easy to work on, easy to maintain. Where I live isn’t a bad neighborhood, but it borders one and sometimes that spills over. We get theft, some property damage, the occasional police chase.

My truck’s been broken into a few times over the years. I don’t leave anything valuable inside, just some power steering fluid, a funnel, a flea market tool bag, napkins. After a couple busted windows, I stopped locking the doors. I just leave them open now. It’s easier.

I’m an avid reader. Sometimes I go through three books a week. Philosophy, material related to my work, autobiographies, some fiction. There’s always a small pile of books in my truck.

Every time it gets rummaged through, it’s the same story, the center console open, glove box emptied. But the books? Always untouched.

They’re not especially expensive, but they’re not cheap either. Their value isn’t in resale it’s in what they hold. And I can’t help but feel a quiet amusement in that. Whoever’s breaking in doesn’t even consider them.

If they did, if they took one, read it, it might change their life more than whatever coins are in my cup holder or the gas station charger in the cigarette lighter.

I almost wish they would. That they’d stumble into Rumi, or find something in Kahlil Gibran. Maybe see themselves in I Am Malala, or get pulled into the worlds of Andy Weir or Tchaikovsky.

But they don’t.

No one ever steals the books.