My Uncompleted Stories

The Book

The light glows softly around me, burning low in its silver holder. The walls spread around me, burgundy, warm and cozy. Bookshelves line them, stacked with tomes and scrolls and fairy stories. Thousands of characters wait inside the fragile pages, bound by paper, ink, and time, waiting to come to life for a diligent reader. I sit cross-legged in an easy chair. It is plush, and full of the very softest material.

I begin to grow sleepy, my eyelids closing and my head tilting forward. My book starts to slip from my relaxing hands, and a second later it hits the floor with a muffled thump. I am so sleepy that I barely take notice. I hear a shriek. It echoes lightly in my fuzzy mind, and I slowly rouse, looking about tiredly for the source of the scream.

"You bloody dropped me!" Came the shriek, this time with words. "You bloody idiot. I'm old, and am suffering from rheumatism. No one has read me for years. How dare you let me fall so impudently! My spine could have come apart."

I shake my head, trying to rid myself of this strange dream that I think I am in. "Aren't you going to pick me up?" whines the voice. I sigh, and lift my eyelids. Slowly sliding off the chair, I peer around. "I'm right here, you blasted imp." I look down. There on the floor is my book, a particularly old tome full of tales and adventures from other worlds and other times.

"What?" comes my intelligent response.

"PICK ME UP."

"Did- did you say something, book?" I still thought myself in a dream, and as a consequence pay no heed to the fact that a talking book is a rare thing. A non-existent thing, to be precise.

"Pick me up, you cursed dunce," the book spits. "Or I'll call forth from my pages the Dark Page."

"Don't you mean 'mage'?" I ask.

"No, I mean page. He's very clumsy, and has a habit of destroying things. Like the kingdoms of rulers he despises. And the bones of rude girls who won't help his friends. NOW PICK ME UP."

I comply with an annoyed sigh, and place him on my chair. He releases an audible sigh, and sinks deep into the voluptuous burgundy cushions.

"Much better," he announces, settling in more comfortably.