The Library Fine Was Paid

Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash — an interpretation of the setting, not the moment itself.

A boy stopped coming to the library because of a fine he couldn’t pay — eleven dollars, a lost book about sharks. A retired teacher paid it, then quietly paid every child’s fine in the county. Four hundred kids came back.

This story was submitted anonymously. We wrote it down, because someone should remember.

— We Are Silence Dogood