Signed Book

My professor rattles on but I’m not listening. Instead, I’m staring at the inside of the novel I’ve only read half of. There were just too many things in the way last week papers to grade prayers to say my daughter’s dance class on Saturday the dishes, the wash and an actual conversation or two with my wife. My professor drones on my ears hot and buzzing as I stare at the inside cover of my half-finished novel. There’s blue squiggles in wiggly paths someone’s Bic pen a frantic paintbrush leaving their mark. My professor says something about Diasporic Romance but I’m stuck on those Bic blue squiggles. It looks like an author’s frenzied signature, as if I’d stood in line for hours at a big book signing in Barnes & Noble or Borders. Is this book more valuable because of this spasm of blue ink? Does it make my Amazon.com purchase of $1.52, plus shipping a gold mine? The book is more valuable because of those blue whorls but only because they came from my daughter while I studied Diasporic Romance and she colored.