You and the Book

AN: This story is a one-part story, thus this is the only part. Duh. If you wish, listen to the instrumental "Once Upon Love" by William Joseph, ft. David Foster. Not only does the song make me cry but the story and the song combined.....(cue sobbing)

You and the Book
A Short Story by Everett Moon

It was seconds ago that I heard you open my pages softly for the first time. At first I was afraid, knowing that my endless domain of page and ink was being violated by my first reader. I didn’t know what you would do to me. Rip my pages? Dribble water into my spine to drown me in my own words? But as soon as I began to worry I felt a glowing warmth, and I perceived a happiness, an excited smile spreading across your face. I heard my pages rustle as you turned them eagerly, beginning my story with anticipation. I knew you weren’t going to hurt me or my book, and so I began to act out my story, something I had dreamed of doing for the weeks and months when my book sat in the shop on sale.

I let you pore over my pages, felt your tears hit the soft fibers of my paper during the chapters where emotion pulsed through your very soul, and I could sometimes feel your fingertips stroke the spine gently when you held me in your hands. And during some sections, I even sensed your cheek touch my pages, you laying your head against my story like a close friend. I felt your breath heavy on me when my characters fought daring swordfights or were close to death.

I knew I was doing my job well.

When you put a bookmark between my pages, I got nervous, worried you were leaving me behind, stopping my story like a frozen picture. But you always came back for me. It was like through a crack in time, I felt that some part of me was still open, a little bit of my story was still going inside my head, a shard of light still shone through the darkness when you were not with me.

I couldn’t see you or hear you, not really, but inside my small mentality I knew that you were speaking to me. I could feel your emotions; your soul was totally immersed in my life and story as your eyes flew across my words. I knew that somewhere above me there was some greater being than I, someone who really believed my story was real. It was different from when the Author wrote me- I was uncomfortable, like my story and body was being bent and twisted to his every desire. You didn’t try to change me, you accepted me for who I was and loved every fiber of my being for it.

Slowly, I began to understand your thoughts, and we could converse in short bits during the lighter parts of my story. My plotline took a backseat in my life, and you became my sole desire every moment of my existence. I forgot that when the book ended, you would disappear, and I would forget everything about you, be re-born, and act out my story again for some other person.

You were just a shadow, a wisp of time.

I slowly became more attached. We talked all the time, you pausing at a random word to ask me a question, and we’d talk for a little while before you went back to reading more about me. I yearned to see your face, to take your hand, to know what a Reader felt like and was like. But I knew somewhere in my narrow ability to think and understand, that you were nothing to me. You weren’t supposed to matter. But you did.

I never knew the definition of love, but if I could have felt it for real, it would have been right there with you. The only love I felt in my story was artificial, like I was a puppet on the stage, faking a romance that wasn’t mine. My sole desire was you.

The pages flew on, through the thick of the book until there were just two pages on the right side of the spine.

~⊙~

And here we are now, you stopping at a word-‘time’- to ask me another question. To speak another gorgeous, brittle word into my stream of thoughts. You ask me if we’re almost done. I tell you we are, and I feel a wave of fear sweep over you. I ask you what’s wrong, and you don’t reply.

I feel moisture touch my face, and somewhere in my story, a word blurs, erasing that noun or verb from my vocabulary. You’re crying, and my heart burns to stroke your hair and tell you everything will be okay. I understand why you’re upset now, and I am too.

Everything ends here. You end here.

Suddenly I feel encased by my surroundings, and I finally realize that I am trapped here. I'll never see you again, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Our love will be erased. Our future is gone now.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, and it is a sad sort of thunder, a monotone thrum of imminent oblivion. I percieve hot tears running down your face. You tell me you don’t want to leave. “It’s not going to be over,” I say, surprising myself. I know that I can’t really talk, but from somewhere, I pull the willpower to write words into my own story. “We’re going to hit the back cover eventually. But YOU won’t be over, no matter if I am. You can read my story over and over again, and remember me and what I was.”

You hesitate, and I feel my last page rustle, then fall back again.

My voice is louder now. “It’s your time to be the hero, not me,” I say. “You have a whole story about yourself to be written. What if this is all a book about you, and your Readers are waiting for your choice? You can’t stay here forever. I won’t last forever.”

Soft fingers stroke the page and rain begins to fall from the sky, mingling with my own tears. “You have to close it,” I whisper.

That’s when the clouds break and I see your face for the first time, a sharp image through the blurred cloud.

You’re gorgeous.

“Close the book and finish your story,” I say.

You speak, and for the first time, I can hear you, it isn’t a deep knowledge of your mind or a slight rumble above me. “I’ll never forget you.” You disappear, and my world grows darker. Panic explodes in the heart of my papers, but is suddenly calmed by the knowledge that you aren’t really gone. You’ll be back, reading and re-reading my story over and over again, remembering me and when you first met me, that magical day when you opened the page and it whispered to you.

I hear the crinkling of plastic against paper as you slide your hand across my back cover, tentatively closing it. My world is in twilight now.

I raise my hand in farewell, my last thought on You and all the life you gave me. Everything you believed about me.

The world spins and turns black, and I am just a book, void of all emotions, feelings, or thoughts.

Just a book.