Alphabet of Calamity

Brian

My name is Brian. And I love books.

One could call me a bibliophile, and they would be correct. The smell of paper, the stiff glue of the binding and the thread weaving all the pages together... it's like crack. So many words to be read that it would be impossible to try and read everything ever written but sometimes I debate trying. Hell, if you're reading this, you must have some bit of book lover in you. You're like me. So you'll understand my little story.

When I turned seventeen, I wanted to be a writer. Of what, you may ask? Of my life story! It wasn't particularly tumultuous but it showed the saving power of books from things like abuse and depression, a true feel good story. But I wanted to do it right, and start out with a manuscript that was physical, pen and ink on paper, none of that digital crap. I wrote the beginning of my tale in red ink, scarlet, as I burst from the womb and into a cruel world not made for me.

My childhood tales were uneventful, full of adults with booze and sleeping on couches because my bed was taken again, nothing fitting of a coming of age story. For those parts, I used my scarlet ink mixed with an extreme reduction of my mother's favorite Guinness. Making that ink was kind of gross, the smell coppery and acrid, but that's part of the writer's process! When my sister was born she cried, and she did again when I added a per of her to my bibliography, a bright new scarlet.

School was something I loved, especially the library for obvious reasons, but I fell in love there too. I fell hard and as I did, the writing in my manuscript became cursive as life became fluid and beautiful. But when I was left alone, I decided my book was done. I wasn't the main character of a romance, so maybe a tragedy instead. Maybe that would fit.

I decided to start binding my book, but it was a product of my heart and soul, my lifeblood in fact, so why not my flesh too? I studied books on the tanners and leather industry until I was confident I understood the process. And then, taking patches from my arm, I carved out the flesh needed to bind my book. Only the best leather for the pages of my life, so I had to try and try and try many times. My arms, my stomach, my thighs.. all of my skin was flayed for my craft.

I did lose a lot of blood writing my bibliography. And now, looking the way I did, warped and disfigured with a book of the sad man in his twenties... I didn't have anything left to add to my story. As a writer, I had no purpose. My lovely book of monstrous making, it ruined me. And I had to. My love of books carried me to a new level of happiness as I let off of my life in this reality and took to the one on my pages instead. Now the only Brian was in my Bloody Book.