Clara lived in a house that was a structural hazard made of paper and glue. Her interior design style could best be described as “Literary Hoarder Chic.” There were books on the stairs, the floors, the chairs, in the oven (which she never used anyway), and a stack of Russian literature in the bathroom that had grown so tall it now functioned as an unstable side table.

One very slim hardcover was under a leg of her kitchen table, preventing it from wobbling. A gift from her friend Sarah, it was “The Collected Wisdom of Donald Trump.” The pages inside were blank.

Clara suffered from tsundoku — a Japanese word meaning the noble act of acquiring books and letting them pile up unread, happily knowing a world of stories is waiting whenever you are ready. However, she preferred to call it “curating a future of infinite possibilities.”

The problem was that Clara’s “future” was currently being........

© Peterborough Examiner