A Book Is a World...

Pack your bags! We're going!

Not together, you see, on our own. But you still gotta have your bags ready. I've made up my mind and there's little you can do to change it, so you better get up from your computer and start packing. We've got to go soon, if we want to make it.

What gate, you blabbering silly? There is no gate, nothing's closing. There's always room for more and access to forever. So don't you worry your little head about that. Our destination is not shutting the door and turning its back to us, we'll catch it even if we crawl, or if we walk on our toes, like a pretty pink princess.

Although we probably won't do that, because then we'd drop our bags, and then we'd have to stop to pick everything up and put it back again and ughh that would take another thousand forever, so...yeah, we're not doing that.

But we are going.

Well, it was more of a form of speech, what do you call it? A metaphor? I don't know, maybe, it's close enough, or at least, it should be. Our making it there is very real and time-sensitive, I'm afraid, but the problem isn't them. It's us.

Their gates will be open in ten years and a thousand years, and a long time from now. But soon, our feet won't carry us. This world, the worries and the upsets and the fears and the scars will have weighed us down and we won't be able to walk no more, let alone stand on out tippy-tip-toes (my lord, I just said 'tippy-tip-toes', we really must go!). We need to hurry, otherwise we'll be too old and gray to move. We'll be too weighed down. So, we have to go. Right now. We must run and get there. And we have to go alone.

I know. I know. I know there are still some you'd like to meet and loved ones you wouldn't want to leave at your back, but don't worry. There are these wonderful Universes, where our new worlds will meet and we will be able to wave at each other and talk, see how we're doing, perhaps even hug some.

And besides, we'll make so many new friends. And some enemies, perhaps, but it'll be such fun!

And think of all the old friends we'll meet! The long white beard wizards and the princesses that saved themselves, the dragons and beasts and wicked handsome devils.

I'm sorry, I know I said you'd have time to pack, but it appears I was wrong. There's no more time. I really am sorry. So, come on, hurry, pick it up. The only luggage you really need. And let us go.

“This is a book, and a book is a world, and words are the seeds in which meanings are curled. Pages of oceans and margins of land are civilizations you hold in the palm of your hand. But look at your world and your life seems to shrink to cities of paper and seas made of ink. Do you know who you are, or have you been misled? Are you the reader, or are you the read?”
Traci Chee - 'The Reader'

After a bit of thought, I decided I'd like it if it were true. I wouldn't like being misled, but I would like to be the read, for once, and not the reader.
Why? Well, because books have provided me with so much joy. So much comfort and happiness, throughout my life. Can you imagine? It'd be like going to Heaven, only 1000 times better. This whole thing came out of that – the idea that maybe I too was part of the place I loved so much, the neverending wonderland where all my beloved books stretch out and take place...

Thank you for reading,

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