I live in a very small room. After work I go there and read sitting on the sofa, which is somewhat too short for me, so that I have to crouch slightly before going to sleep. I remember that I used to wake up with a stiff neck at the beginning, before I learned to sleep on the diagonal. I have many books, a wardrobe, and a small red table covered with dust and with scraps of paper of various sizes with my notes and short essays. I read most of the time, I smoke continuously, and I drink apricot juice, which I favor over any other kind of fruit juice. I am quite happy this way, but I still cannot escape a vague feeling that my life is somehow barren, flat, unfulfilled… I wonder why I feel this way, since I read very interesting and engaging books. By the way, books are my only passion. I enjoy bookstores tremendously. I love to travel because in every large city I can find at least one good bookstore, where I am capable of losing myself for hours and spending a fortune (my salary is very high, so that I can buy many books per month). Parenthetically, I do not like libraries as much as bookstores. This is mainly because I like to underline what I read, as well as to write my comments in the margins, which I cannot do with borrowed books. Only when I add my own handwriting to a book I feel that I have read it, mastered it. But let me return to that nagging feeling that time is slipping by and that my life is devoid of something important. What is it? What am I looking for? At this moment I have but a conjecture, which may not endure the test of time. It satisfies me for the time being, however. The point is that I am seeking after the book, a book which would engage me completely, without remainder, without producing that impression that something is lacking there. It seems to me that my need to write stems precisely from the feeling that the books I have read always missed something important, something central to my existence. Therefore I am compelled to write in order to add that “something,” to include it in my library, as it were. As I already said, I am presently content with this conclusion. I must write more and read less, I suppose, since the book I am looking for most likely does not exist as yet. Even if it does exist, given the number of good books already written, I am not very likely to stumble upon it. The argument is clear.