Ya'aburnee

Chapter 8: The Second Big Bang

CIA 

I

 wonder what this world would be like without books. I despise that imagination so much that I – ironically enough - dodge these thoughts by delving into a book but even then, the feel of the material against my skin supports the thoughts further.

If books didn't exist, I wouldn't be holding one in my hand right now.
If books didn't exist, I wouldn't have a place to call my escape.

When there's too much for me to carry, I grab a book and drop the burden for the time being. It's a rare time when I am vulnerable and the wall is not up.

They're an escape-mechanism. I am able to slip away into other universes, vanishing from this world. Able to pretend this reality does not exist.

I sit on the bed, a book placed in my hands, a thin blanket draped over my lap. The dazzling golden sunshine beams right onto the pages, enabling me to read in the gloomy room.

My hand is sprawled across a side of the book, stopping the frequent windblow from making the paper flutter and sparing me the two minutes I spend trying to figure out which page I was on.

I read, eyes dropping from line to line, reaching the end, turning, continuing.
I read until I ask myself if stopping time would be possible in books.
Maybe.
Probably.

Anything is possible in a world created by one's own imagination, a place you control. Stopping time seems like one of the occurrences people would want to make a reality in their fantasies.

This is what everyone does.

What we desperately want in our world but can't have, we make it come true in other. Reading tons of books has made me realize that. Rare things the majority of people don't get to experience, to live through in their lives, whatever that may be, most writers will make it happen in the pages they fill with their writing. Not just to please their readers, but to also hang onto the tiny spark of hope that it may not be impossible after all.

Then there are those who like to sneak in a bit of earthly reality into their stories, not giving readers what they want and crave for.

They choose not to.

I've always found those writers so intriguing. It would be like a slap to the face, reading hundreds of pages only to find out that the ending is not what you wanted it to be. But it also gives a certain feeling of comfort, knowing that even in the places you would imagine to be heavenly, some don't get their happy ending.

I wonder what it would be like if my life was a book.

Would I die in a year?
Would someone save me?

The possibilities are endless but here in the reality, they're not. My future is as if engraved in stone, predetermined.

Some of my dreams will remain dreams forever.

I could keep living the rest of time in delusion, waiting for my knight in shining armor.
But I am not delusional to do so or in need of a knight in shining armor in the first place.

I know my fate and it's okay.
It'll all be fine.
I trust the Lord.

And I always have my place of escape to seek in times of need.
I keep reading, absently wondering to what page I'll make it before I'm sucked back into the trouble awaiting me in the real world.

VII

The shriek comes hours later.

I'm on page 187.