|The magic inside a novel| (Open)
Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2017 2:35 pm
Athanasios' Character Sheet.
It is 6pm on a Friday night and unlike most other students packing up to go out for the evening, I was just walking into the library. In my opinion, this is the best time to come to the building, everyone else wanted to go out and get drunk and I always seemed to end up with the place all to myself. It's like my own secret fort, I can escape the demands of the world so long as I stay inside these four walls. This place is my home in a way that no where other than the scortching sands has ever been.
I like the peace of the quiet stone and the warmth of the wood, I feel at home among the shelves. The books contained in their wooden beds are my friends and every time I come here I can not help but run my fingers along their spines, just a gentle caresses of an admirer. It doesn't matter how many hours I have spent reading their pages, or how many times I have read the same story told in slightly different ways – to me it was like the first time. It brings a smile to my lips no matter the voice that whisperes the stories in my ear, but even I must admit that there is always that one book that stands head and shoulders above the rest, and for me it is 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. It is like the tried and true cure for all my troubles, tonight I had decided to seek it out once more.
At home my own copy sits perched in pride of place on my bookshelf – but the one that is held within the confines of the library is special. It sits nestled among two other books, and it calls out to me with the voice of a lover. Eventually I can take it no more, and slowly I reach out and take it from its place. I hold it to my nose and breathe in the scent of the hundred year old paper. If there was any drug I could get addicted to then it was this, the scent of fading ink and decaying paper – it causes a stirring in my heart that no romantic attraction could ever hope to achieve. I belonged to these pages, just as they belong to me.
With great care I carry the masterpiece to a table. It was the same table I always sat at, removed from the rest of the building and with only the light of a small brass lamp to illuminate it – it was the best table in the whole place and it was all mine. The mahogany wood looked particularly inviting today, shining in such a way as to give the illusion that it was beckoning me and I of course could never deny the call of solitude.
Surrounded by what others would consider almost claustrophobic darkness I settle into the bleaching red upholstery of a creaking armchair. I flick on the brass lamp, not that it did much it was only bright enough to light up the fraying green velvet inlay of the table – I place the leather bound book so that it could catch every ray of the dim light – and then I was ready to join Edmond Dantès on a grand adventure.
Not even the apocalypse could pull my eyes from the yellowing pages. Now that I was wrapped in the cosy darkness I will remain here for hours on end.
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” - Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams.
It is 6pm on a Friday night and unlike most other students packing up to go out for the evening, I was just walking into the library. In my opinion, this is the best time to come to the building, everyone else wanted to go out and get drunk and I always seemed to end up with the place all to myself. It's like my own secret fort, I can escape the demands of the world so long as I stay inside these four walls. This place is my home in a way that no where other than the scortching sands has ever been.
I like the peace of the quiet stone and the warmth of the wood, I feel at home among the shelves. The books contained in their wooden beds are my friends and every time I come here I can not help but run my fingers along their spines, just a gentle caresses of an admirer. It doesn't matter how many hours I have spent reading their pages, or how many times I have read the same story told in slightly different ways – to me it was like the first time. It brings a smile to my lips no matter the voice that whisperes the stories in my ear, but even I must admit that there is always that one book that stands head and shoulders above the rest, and for me it is 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. It is like the tried and true cure for all my troubles, tonight I had decided to seek it out once more.
“Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.” - Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams.
At home my own copy sits perched in pride of place on my bookshelf – but the one that is held within the confines of the library is special. It sits nestled among two other books, and it calls out to me with the voice of a lover. Eventually I can take it no more, and slowly I reach out and take it from its place. I hold it to my nose and breathe in the scent of the hundred year old paper. If there was any drug I could get addicted to then it was this, the scent of fading ink and decaying paper – it causes a stirring in my heart that no romantic attraction could ever hope to achieve. I belonged to these pages, just as they belong to me.
With great care I carry the masterpiece to a table. It was the same table I always sat at, removed from the rest of the building and with only the light of a small brass lamp to illuminate it – it was the best table in the whole place and it was all mine. The mahogany wood looked particularly inviting today, shining in such a way as to give the illusion that it was beckoning me and I of course could never deny the call of solitude.
“We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own.” - Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams.
Surrounded by what others would consider almost claustrophobic darkness I settle into the bleaching red upholstery of a creaking armchair. I flick on the brass lamp, not that it did much it was only bright enough to light up the fraying green velvet inlay of the table – I place the leather bound book so that it could catch every ray of the dim light – and then I was ready to join Edmond Dantès on a grand adventure.
Not even the apocalypse could pull my eyes from the yellowing pages. Now that I was wrapped in the cosy darkness I will remain here for hours on end.