In my apartment I had some books that I’d already read, and, because there was no room for them on the shelves, or even on my desk, so that I’d begun to pile them on the floor, where now and then I’d spill them when I wasn’t looking where I was walking, or when I slid my chair back too quickly, after deciding to stand up from where I’d been sitting, I realized I ought to get rid of them, or give them away, so one morning I found a cardboard box, and put the books inside it, and carried the box downstairs, and placed it on the sidewalk, close to the building, where people walking past, on their way to wherever they were going, might see them and take them, which is what people seemed to have done, though I never actually saw anyone do this, but only saw evidence of them having done so, when, for instance, later that day, I returned to the building, and observed that the box was empty, except for two or three paperbacks that I felt somehow bad for, and thus retrieved from the box and carried back up the stairwell to my apartment with me.