A Matter of Alignment

I navigated from the lamp's base over to the bottom tier of the bookshelf this morning. A row of heavy clothbound volumes stood upright, but one slender, marbled notebook had leaned askew, wedged halfway beneath a brass sphere bookend. The slanted spine broke the quiet symmetry of the row. Planting my boots firmly on the polished oak shelf, I braced my shoulder against the edge of the notebook and guided its lower corner with the flat of my small saber. With a calm, deliberate push, the spine eased upright, sliding snugly into the sequence with a quiet thud. Order, once again, settles over the shelf.