It looked just the way it should

I remember the book itself—it looked just the way it should, having come down through a couple of generations. It was missing its tide page and cover, the pages had frayed edges and bore the yellowed prints of many fingers; it held a dried violet, a fly flattened over time, sums done in the margins and doodles executed in crayon by some child I didn’t know.

Wislawa Szymborska, Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces.