The Borrower of Time
In the town of Chestertown, Maryland—where brick sidewalks whispered history and the library smelt of rain and oak—lived an elderly man named Mr. Elwyn Morrow. A retired clockmaker, Elwyn visited the Kent County Public Library every Thursday without fail, always in his signature blue cap and with a handwritten list of books that seemed to grow longer with each visit.
He never used the internet, never ordered online. “The joy,” he said, “is in the browsing, not the buying.” Every librarian knew him. He read everything—astronomy, Russian poetry, 18th-century cookbooks, quantum mechanics, and even picture books if the illustrations looked “curious enough.”
One rainy afternoon, a teenage girl named Lana noticed him carefully thumbing through a heavy volume on time dilation. Curious, she asked, “Are you trying to understand time travel?”
Elwyn chuckled. “Oh no, I’ve given up trying to stop time. I’m just trying to stretch it long enough to read a bit more.”
She smiled. “There’s so much to read, isn’t there?”
He looked at her, eyes twinkling. “So many books... and so little time. But what’s life if not the quiet art of choosing your next book wisely?”
Over the next few weeks, Lana found herself joining him every Thursday. He’d pass her handwritten reading suggestions, and she’d teach him to use a tablet to access rare texts online. Slowly, they built something neither could fully explain—a bridge between eras, minds, and dreams.
When Elwyn passed away that winter, the library staff found a note tucked into his favorite chair. It read:
“I have borrowed many books from this library. And I suspect I’ve borrowed a bit of time too. Leave the light on. Someone else will want to read.”
From that day, the chair remained empty, but every Thursday, Lana still came, now mentoring kids and helping them find their next story.
Moral:
We may not finish every book, but the love for reading gives us timeless companions—and sometimes, borrowed time.
Inspiration:
So many books, so little time. - Frank Zappa
