She scribbled across the small pages, using her knees to steady the book as she wrote. It wasn't much, but it gave her a few minutes of peace every day. Write in her journal, make plans for the future and tell about what had happened the day before. A record of her life, her daddy used to tell her. It may not seem important every day right now, but some day it could be. It would be a glimpse into her past when she was older, or perhaps in these times it could be a record for the people who came later.
Beth didn't know that anyone in the future would be interested in the thoughts and feelings of a farm girl from Georgia, but her daddy told her that historians were often interested in those things and about the events as told by the people experiencing them. By being a survivor, she was someone important. She could tell their story, and her own, and it might matter to someone, someday. She sighed, almost setting the diary aside.
Every day was so similar to the one before it was hard to think of what to write this morning. Yesterday she had done her chores at the prison. She watched Judith for a while and helped Carol with lunch for everyone, and then cleaned her cell. It hadn't really needed cleaning yet, but it was something to do while waiting for the run team to return. Glenn was out with them and that meant Maggie was nervous, and when her sister was nervous she tended to pay too much attention to what Beth was doing. Older sisters could be a pain. Beth rolled her eyes just thinking about it.
Glenn had returned safely, with the rest of the team, and they had found some canned fruit. That had been a treat for dinner even though most of it was put in storage for rationing out later. Michonne had passed a few comics to Carl, and he had offered to share them with Beth but she had never been that interested in superheroes. She had been working her way through the prison library. They didn't have many of the more recent novels but they did have a lot of classics.
Reading was something to do when she was done with the chores of the day, and the others had noticed and had begun to bring her more popular paperbacks that were easily found in the best seller racks of convenience stores and bookshelves in some of the houses. Daryl had tossed her a book as soon as he had seen her in the prison yard. She was almost done with the last book and couldn't wait to start the new one. When she finished one book she passed them on, if they were any good, to Carol. Beth knew that Carol would pass it on to someone else, probably Rick or Maggie.
She shook her head, turning back to her blank journal pages. There had to be something to write, other than "today was exactly the same as yesterday." She bit her lip, rubbing her eyes with one hand, and began with the basics.