Magpie Tales 66, her grandmother's bookcase

Photo prompt provided by Tess Kincaid

Wikipedia photo

She had inherited her grandmother’s love of reading and, later, inherited her grandmother’s bookcase, full of all the treasures over which they had pored, together, for many an hour during her childhood and youth.

News photo May 16, 2011

Yesterday, when the 7,000 residents of the town of Slave Lake, Alberta, were evacuated as fire threatened to engulf the area, she was forced to leave the bookcase behind, and only had time to grab eight books of the many volumes its shiny shelves had housed. She had work to do, and no time to spend at home after news of massive damage at the Town Hall reached her. 

Later, at an emergency evacuee reception centre in the town of Athabasca, she told everyone the fire had claimed no lives, and there were no reports of injuries. The relief she felt for her friends and neighbours was real and heartfelt, but so was her grief for her grandmother’s books and bookcase. She had to hide her own grief, however, because, after all, she was mayor of the burnt town.

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Tess, at Willow Manor, provides a prompt for Magpie Tales every week, and invites us to make of it what we will—a story, a poem, or even just a well-crafted sentence. 

For my submission this week, I have incorporated yesterday's news of a devastating fire in northern Alberta. My apologies to Slave Lake's mayor,  Ms Karina Pillay-Kinnee, for any suggestion that she put herself or her private possessions before her mayoral duties because, of course, she did not.

To see how others responded to Tess's photo prompt of books on a shelf, a subject of interest to all writers everywhere, please click

HERE!