First Fail

"You could have told Alis to bring a book," Irimena said.

"You know, I could have," Afena conceded. "It skipped my mind, and I'm sorry. But you could find other things to do."

They were both in their house, alone. After spending the morning going out to see how they could help the folks of their settlement, they were eating the noon meal together.

"You made me love books," replied Irimena. "You taught me how to read, then brought books into my life, and then took them away as if it meant nothing."

"I'll remind you that you were very angry with some of those books."

"I was angry with whoever made them. It's not the books' fault if their writer was horrendously incompetent at expressing themselves. I still loved those innocent, faultless bound pages of knowledge."

"Well, what I wanted to say," Afena said pointedly, "was that you should start finding something about which to write, and start writing."