magisternihil's 100-word story for June 25, 2026

magisternihil wrote the following micro-story on Hectalex on June 25, 2026. Each story on Hectalex is inspired by a daily visual prompt and must be exactly 100 words.

“Always look at a person’s shelves,” my grandmother always told me. “They’re the truest confession of who they really are.” Since then, whenever I’ve visited a person’s house that was the first place I looked. Not at at their art, or DVD collection, but at their books, tchotchkes, and other ephemera that they’ve placed on those horizontal portals, cataloging their walk through life and the relics of their journey they needed to keep so badly that they place them as a constant reminder to themselves of where they have been. Also, if their books are crap you know to run.

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