indeathmayibetriumphant:

i-amwho-i-am:

what if a guy in a hoodie comes up to you and hands you a giant book and gives you a sly smirk. when you start to read it, you realize it’s a book about your entire life. would you read it to the end?

The encounter was so weird, you almost wanted to throw the book away after the man had left, but curiosity always got the better of you. Well, with books it always did. Whole worlds existed between those covers who were you to deny this one? It was old and tattered, a light olive green cover with no title, it looked like it had gotten a lot of use, maybe it was one of his favorites? 

You read the first page, the next, and the one after. The prose is lovely and well written but you begin to notice something off. It sounds… familiar? Then it’s there, plain as day. Your name. Your parent’s names. The hospital where you were born. You toss the book half way across the room in surprise. Your knees curl up into the armchair and you cradle them as you stare at it. A few minutes pass and you step down and grab it again, this time going deeper into your house to read it as if it was the greatest kept secret you’ve ever stumbled upon. 

There it is, black ink on slightly yellowed paper. It is old after all. It even has that wonderful old book smell. You tear up reading about the silly adventures you had as a kid, tenderly rubbing the pages as a fond memory jumps out at you. Your best friend growing up, all those hiding places in your house. Everything. You finally glance up, looking at a clock to find the whole day has almost gone by and it’s nearly two am. You haven’t even touched your computer since you got this book. 

You decide you will go to bed, but you keep the book right next to you on the pillow, still holding on to it, unwilling to accept it as a dream you need to feel it in your hands right up until the moment you drift away from consciousness. 

Each and every day when you finish your work you go back to the book. You’ve forgotten just how much you’ve done in your life. And you always said that you hadn’t done anything special. When you were seven and you gave that other kid a flower, that really made an impact on their life, and you were just being kind. Whole other stories seemed to spiral from yours. Little inconsequential details meant so much to the people around you and you never realized this. 

You find yourself spending most of your time with your story. Some of your friends have asked to see it, but you clutch it close and say “I’m sorry, this ones just for me.” There is something in you that is scared they may take it away or judge you for it. But you don’t care, you love your book and you love the way it makes you laugh, makes you cry. Even when it makes you angry at something you did when you were younger you still smile at the book before closing it and going to sleep. 

Deeper and deeper into those old pages, something inside you stirs. You realize that you are drawing closer to the present, you recognize an event from two months ago and you start to panic. What will the story say? Will it tell you your future? Are you even allowed to look ahead? You leave the book on your shelf for a very long time.

A month has gone by and you haven’t touched the book, you’ve nearly forgotten all about it. You catch a glimpse of that fading olive cover and you almost open it again. Your fingers twitch as you reach for it but a shiver runs down your spine and you leave it alone. A year goes by. And another. Until you’ve gotten old and it’s all but a distant memory locked away behind so much else. 

Work has gotten crazy, you’ve been promoted and that means a substantial pay raise, but it also means you’ve got longer hours. So you decide a move would suit you. As you are packing your boxes you notice a dust covered shelf. Like you hadn’t even cleaned it in ten years. There in the center is your book. Your heart swells as you pick it up and you smile warmly. Your thumb grazes over the front and a smear of green shows through the dust. 

You sit betwixt the towers of half-packed boxes and tape, and begin to leaf through again. Quickly in the beginning, but you stop to read some of your favorite moments and start reading it again once you find where you left off.

Loves lost and gained, friends new and old. Opportunities you missed and those terribly bad days between the amazingly wonderful ones. The author spun a tale about you that really actually captures who you were through all your phases. You sit there smiling through your tears that wont stop streaming. How could you have put down this for so long? 

You remember how you felt when you first caught up to the current time and the fear strikes you again, but you as curious and bold as ever, dare to venture further. A few pages in and your heart feels like it fell in your stomach. The book was saying that the new apartment wasn’t going to be all that good and your neighbor was going to be terrible. Angrily you pack up the book and finish everything else you need to do to get going, you spent too much time with it anyway. You’ve visited the new place it was wonderful! 

But the book was right. A week in you began to notice all the little things. When it rained the wooden walls would shrink and swell, and every day the two neighbors were shouting at each other. How could the book do this to you? You trusted it and now it did this? Still bitter, months go by until you pick it up again realizing that those bad events were going to happen either way, it wasn’t the books fault. But you decide it best to not read into the future again. 

More and more years go by, each and every so often you check back in and review what you had done. It always seems like so much more when the book re-tells you. But that’s because the book sees the little details that you miss when you are really living it.

And now you are old. You seem to match the book now, a bit worn on the outside, but you both know how much you have got on the inside. Your sight has gone a little but your book always seems clear to you. Maybe it’s because it’s the stories you lived, but you think that that book is magic somehow. It must be. You feel strong holding it in your hands, the weight of a life well lived. Somedays you might have thought that you could have accomplished more, but the book reminds you how much impact you have.

Your family had visited earlier, but now you are alone. You can see that there is only a few pages left. You smile to yourself feeling peace, not fear, this time when you turn the page to read on. 

Beyond the wall of the hospital room, a familiar face waits. A trick up his sleeve and a friendly hand to hold. He will be there for you until the end.

You look up from the prose and smile, there he is behind his hoodie, the same sly smirk. A familiar face indeed. The guy who gave you the book, not aged a day. He sits beside you on the bed and smiles. “Did you like it?”

You nod and add “I haven’t read the end yet.” He offers to read it to you. 

In a hospital bed on a cold sunday morning, sat one of the most brilliant examples of a human being. Throughout their life they had touched so many hearts, and brought smiles to so many faces. While they may have never seen it themselves, or believed it. They were wonderful. They were loved. 

As you slip away, he reads the words the end. Your hand goes limp within his, and he nods and leaves the room. All is well. All is done.