An old name on the first page of a book, and six lines about something you are only holding for a while

Three names on one first page. The top one is in blue ink, big strokes, underlined. The middle one is black ballpoint, the tails of the letters already smeared. The last is tiny, pressed against the edge of the paper, like the writer was afraid of bothering someone.

I sell used books under a banyan tree at the mouth of the market alley, and I have for eleven years. The stall is two blue tarps spread on the ground, one low stool, and a few crates of newly collected books that still smell of damp paper. Opening the first page of every book is something my hands do without asking me: if there is writing in it, the price drops.

If you have ever stood in the middle of your home lately, holding something and not knowing which box it belongs in, keep, give away or sell, then you probably know the feeling of "mine" suddenly refusing to sit still.

This post is one sheet of paper and six lines. Pick one thing, write, read it back. I did it first on the back of an old calendar page, right at the stall, so if anything sounds clumsy, that is the voice of someone who just finished writing.

This post is not telling you to own less, or to stop treasuring what you treasure. Some people read the word impermanence and decide they should live as if they were renting, never buying a nice cup. I sell used books and I still love new ones, so I know nobody has to live like that. The six lines below are only for looking at what "mine" has been holding.

Whose first page has your name on it?

Saturday morning, quarter past six, I opened a crate collected from a house that had just been cleared out. Comics, a few cookbooks with curled corners, one thick novel. That novel had three names.

A young man browsing at the stall picked it up.

"Ma'am, this one already has someone's name in it."

"That's why I take five thousand dong off."

"But whose names are they? There are three."

"I don't know. And I never got to ask anyone."

I don't know where the person with the biggest name is now, whether they remember this book, whether they would know it is lying on my tarp. I leave that sentence as it is, because there is nobody left to ask.

One thing I have noticed, only in the crates I have opened myself: the first name is big, the next ones shrink, and the last person tends to tuck in a corner. I am not sure it is true of every book. But the later owners seem to write like they are asking permission.

People write their names so a book will not get borrowed away. A name says: this one has an owner. Yet the book in my hand had three, which means it had already "had an owner" twice and still ended up at my stall. A name does not keep the book. All it keeps is a mark that someone once held it.

A few months ago I realized I put my name on plenty of things without ever using a pen. The stool I sit on every morning. The scissors I cut cardboard with. One spot on the stair rail at home where my hand always lands in exactly the same place. Sometimes this feels like the old table that gets older every day without anyone seeing it, except here it also carries the words "my own".

What stopped me was not the line "everything ends someday", anybody can say that. It was seeing that every time I call something mine, I only think about one line, my line. I had never once thought about the second line: who comes after me.

The first three lines take about ten minutes. The second line is usually the slowest, so if lines one and three come quickly while line two keeps stalling, you are writing in the right place.

I sat on the stool with the red-handled scissors in my lap. Line one came right away: cardboard scissors. For line two I wrote "bought at a stationery shop", then sat trying to remember who had sold them to me and could not, so my "who held it before" was blank. Line three: the left blade has a nick, the red handle has gone pale. Line two was shorter than I expected, short enough to be a little funny. Eleven years of using these scissors, and before that I know exactly one word: "shop".

Two or three days later, each time I picked up the scissors, my hand slowed by half a beat. Maybe four or five times. Then it stopped. I am not sure it did anything for me, but I remember those four or five times clearly.

On a day that is too busy, write only line two, two minutes: who was this thing with before it was with me. Know it or not, write it down.

The bigger the object, the easier it is to get stuck at line two. Sáu, who repairs locks at the stall next to mine, heard me talk about it and grabbed the paper and wrote right away: the house. Twenty minutes later the sheet was still blank from line two down.

"The house, I can't," he said. "My father's name is in there."

He laughed, folded the paper and shoved it into his shirt pocket. I did not push. The next day he wrote again, about an old ring of keys in a drawer. Save the big ones for later, and start with a pair of scissors or a cup.

Write one sentence for the next person to hold it, then cross your name out

Ten years ago I kept a bottle of correction fluid in my toolbox. When books came in, I opened the first page and painted a white coat over every name before putting them out. I thought it made them cleaner and easier to sell.

Mr. Lâm, a regular who only buys old martial-arts novels, picked one up and looked at the white smear on the first page.

"You wiped out the best part."

"What part, Mr. Lâm? It's an old story, nothing special."

"The name. Any name. You buy a used book to know someone read it before you."

I stood there holding the bottle, listening to him turn pages, and could not argue with a single word.

That bottle dried up long ago.

It turns out people who buy used books are looking for exactly what I wanted to hide. The mark of an earlier hand does not make a book dirty. It gives the next person something to hold onto. And I think line four, the line for the next person, is hard not because the words are hard to find. It is hard because to write it I have to admit there will be a next person, which means a day will come when I am not holding it anymore. I was not ready to write that sentence in ballpoint.

If the thing you are thinking of really is about to change hands, a motorbike for example, seven questions before selling the motorbike of twelve years goes deeper into exactly that spot.

Line four took about three minutes. I meant to write something good. What came out was: the left blade is loose, turn the screw half a turn and it bites. I read it, wanted to cross it out, and left it. A tip about a screw is also a dedication. I read line five out loud, and it sounded more like a complaint than a gift, so I changed two words.

At line six I took the pen and brought it over the word "scissors" at the top of the page. My hand hung in the air for about three seconds before it touched down. I don't know why. The scissors are just scissors.

Three days later the calendar page was still under the clip at the stall. I read it again: the screw tip was still right, and the line through the word looked like nothing at all. The first time through, some people find line four hardest, some find line six. I can only tell you mine.

On a busy day, do line four alone, thirty seconds, for whatever is in your hand: one sentence for whoever holds it next.

Hands like to tidy up right after the crossing out. Tear the paper to make it neat, or copy it out clean, because finishing feels good. I know, because I painted over names. Leave the page as it is, crossed out, smudged. It is a first page too, and the smudge is the part the next person will read.

If you finish and it feels empty, or feels heavy

That afternoon a university student bought three cookbooks. She heard me talk about the paper and said:

"I tried it, ma'am. It came out totally blank. Every line blank."

"What did you pick?"

"My rice cooker. From the supermarket."

Blank is the more common trouble. If the thing is two years old, has no marks yet and nobody held it before you, every line will be blank for real. I told her that if the rice cooker has no mark of hers on it, maybe she is only keeping it and has not really used it, and knowing that is an answer too. Pick another thing, one with scratches and a smell. If every thing comes out blank, that is fine, an empty sheet is not a failed assignment.

The second trouble gets mentioned less. Some things belong to someone who is no longer here. You write line two and line four for it, and the paper gets heavier, not lighter. If that happens, fold the paper and put it away. Nothing says you must finish in fifteen minutes, or this month. You can tell a person you trust out loud instead of writing.

Some people also think better with their mouths than with a pen. For them, just say it aloud, "before me, this was with…", and the listener can be a wall. And if starting from photos on your phone feels easier than starting from objects, deleting old photos or keeping them talks about exactly that.

When evening came I folded the tarps. The book with three names sat on top of the crate, still unsold.

I left it there, first page facing up.

This article was created with AI assistance.