As the final page flattered shut, she sighed. Such a
thing was a tale well told; such magic that had transported and delighted her.
A passionate man, whose sensuality had captured a beautiful women and their
intense romance had unfolded in Paris and with the final denoument, she was
ejected firmly from their world into her own. Awake suddenly in the half light
of the dying day in the empty expanse of her home. Her heart still longing to
beat faster, to gaze into the eyes of one who wanted her as intensely as the
hero wanted the lady of her stories.
These moments were the worst, in her
everyday life, she was firm and bright, independant and strong but here in the
confines of her sanctum; the longing she held hidden could finally be allowed
to surface. Wryly smiling at her
reflection: an ugly unremarkable face, as much as she knew the impossibilities
of fate, great love was never meant for her. Still surfacing from a great love
story was never easy, she felt like she was gasping on the shore of her life,
still doused in the remains of the characters love. Still afire with alien
desire. Under the sensible clothes of her hard working life beat the soul of
one who hungered for a great love.
She often felt not like the beauty but most
like the beast: singular, fierce, fearsome and entirely unloved. And like the
beast maybe she was the last and only one of her kind. Pouring herself another
cup of coffee, she promised out loud: 'no more'. Then she laughed. Even to
herself in an empty cold room, that was an empty promise.
She used books like a
junkie may use drugs. For succour, when the edges of the real world grew too
hard, when her heart became to cold, then she read. Plunging head first into
epic adventures, great loves and headlong sensuality. She devoured them voraciously,
until her heart grew warm again and her sweet vulnerable hunger tugged at her
heart. She would not loose her fire to this hard world. Books floated her like
life boats, kept her heart alive and even though in the cold logical depths of
her big crackling working mind; she knew she would never find a lifetime love;
her books kept her from letting this turn her cold and calculating. They
anchored her foolish youthful dreams and lit the fires of her passion. She read
like others ate a delicious meal, for pure sensual pleasure.
She read to remind
herself that whilst she may not have great love; she still stood on dark nights beneath a great moon that looked down
on lovers somewhere. She read to sustain her vulnerable soul, she read for that
little girl whose first once upon a time had caused her eyes to come alive. She
read because without books; she could feel her eyes glaze over, she could feel
the slow transformation to an automaton.
Life she found was a slow dissolution,
a woman who stood alone was subject to a change. The world scoured away her
softness, her dreams and her vulnerabilities till she is a harder version of
herself. She wouldn't giver up her dreams, her hurts or her self. She could not
concede and so despite the fact that it made her life infinitly more
convoluted, she read. She hoarded them and dove inside them. She fought page by
page to keep her dreams and her heart. She read like a dying man sucking the
very marrow out of his final minutes. She read to keep herself alive. She read!
