"Same library, and sometimes the same section, but our pages are different, we write them in different ways."
I could hear him walking down the aisle, the echo of his boots shaking the walls of my world. I wish I could move a little bit farther from my spot, to stand out from the others. I was wedged between the classics, not really in any particular order. I could hear the murmurings of the others. The display case said that he was young but how young? Sometimes the taller children could reach us and we would sit scattered around the building for hours to days before we found our way back home. My spine was growing stiff, the muted grey and blue couldn’t match the sparkling appeal of the leather and gold.
I settled in the beginning, rooted softly in the large wing-backed chair that was my home for three pages out of the rest. It was my favorite part. I watched as the room settled itself, moving back to where it was to start. The fire in my study crackled softly as the day shifted back to night. I could hear the wolves howling next to my window and I hissed at them to quiet down. They didn’t scare me until chapter seven and it was not the time to start showing off. The soft cracked leather of the chair slowly repaired itself. I knew that we were all doing the same, preening and preparing; Settling into our molds in hopes that the hands would reach up and wrapped around us.
I held my breath as the footsteps stopped in front of my row. The display case shouted out that he was reaching for Sherlock, they always picked him first. I could hear his victorious chatter as Watson lectured him about propriety. They giggled maliciously but their joy was cut short as they were put back in their spot. Emma complained from her opened page, that he didn’t seem romantic enough to appreciate her story and went back to painting. My skin itched as I felt him gripping me. The room shook and my lunch threatened to stain the purple and gray checkered rug beneath my feet. The books on the table swayed lightly and I watched as my tea jumped from its cup a few times. I never got used to being picked up.
Once the tremors subsided I readied myself for the change. They never opened to the first page. Sometimes I ended up mid sentence in a completely different location and other times I tumbled through so many pages as they flipped nonchalantly through it all. My story wasn’t very unique. I felt boring in comparison to the great works of literature I was forced to reside with. People seemed to like the beginning of my story but they never made it past the woods where I hid. Sometimes, I would be trapped huddling in the forest up in a tree for weeks while they avoided me. The wolves would tirelessly circle, we would talk about what we saw from our open perch, usually on the night stand. I spent a whole summer wedged between a box of crackers and a pile of smelly socks underneath a bed a few years ago.
Most of the main characters were aware of the world outside of the ink. Usually, it happened immediately after printing but sometimes it took decades to become sentient. Supporting characters didn’t feel the need to acknowledge the readers. Others grew bitter and their words faded or they made pages stick together for events they preferred not to repeat. My life wasn’t very interesting, in my opinion, but then again, I had done it a few hundred times.
I felt the spine crack and a pull in my stomach as I jumped from my seat and into my bedroom. He was on the second chapter, just after I discovered I was being given a position as a tutor. My story was a dystopia, “a story of adversity in high society with a futuristic spin” or so my back wall proclaimed. I felt dizzy and I shook my dress out a bit before the bright lights of the aisle touched my floor. His eyes were bright blue behind silver thin rectangle frames. He had a scar starting above his left eye that slightly went through the tapered end of thick dark eyebrows. His complexion was a ruddy tan, from spending a great deal of time outdoors, but his lips were much paler and a little fuller at the bottom. His cheekbones were high, and his eyes tipped up at the ends, barely obstructed by the glasses. His hair was thick and greasy, black and shiny, like overly polished dress shoes. He was beautiful.
I felt the heat rise up my neck and warm my face. I knew that he couldn’t tell that the blush wasn’t from my shouting match with my mother, after she tried to forbid me from taking the position. I ached to crane my neck to get another look at him but he was reading about my escape. My eyes snapped forward as I pulled the blue dress from my wardrobe and changed into it. I was used to having to change with eyes on me but the propriety was shielded by the words which never quite went into enough detail to give away what I really looked like. I blushed again anyways. He was at the end of the page now, I was at the window, looking over the trellis, calculating my climb down. I would make it down safely but a bee buzzing in my ear would distract me enough that I lose my footing and tumble down the back hill. The bruise would last six pages.
“Jason!” The word shot out from beyond the page and rang in my ears. He turned his head and answered back, his thick booming voice almost sending me toppling over the edge of my sil. The book snapped closed and I sat down, unbuttoning the collar of my coat. I waited, listening for the soft slide of being put back. It didn’t come. My room shook and dipped as if someone was running with me. I clapped excitedly, calling back to the others, some of them cheered while others did not. It was nice to feel the lasers warming the back side of my hardback, to hear the soft rustle of papers and the swift shift back to his hands. He placed me in the dark of a bag and onto his back. There was a deep growling rumble around me that was only mildly muffled by the fabric. The bag shook and tilted.
I fell asleep shortly after, the vibrations rocking me gently. I didn’t notice that we had stopped or that he had walked into his room until I was being jerked back into my leather chair, the chamomile tea filling my senses, a vase of lavender on the table in front of me. It felt good to be read again. He read through my introduction, aloud, the smooth timbre of his voice was peppered with sweet peaks brightly springing out over the clunky sentences. I never liked my beginning. It always felt pretentious, the author seemed quite pleased with it though, he put me in other works, but just the mention of me. When a finger ran over my name, or a tongue slid through the sounds, I felt the uncomfortable pull to somewhere foreign and cold. I could taste the acidic ink on bleached paper, my name pulled apart and reconstructed in their image. I missed the rich tang of stained quills and uneven scraps of parchment.
He had stopped reading and moved on, flipping me over again. I tumbled again, the hot tea scalding my arm before it landed in my lap.
-Britny Musson
