The Book of Souls

There, on top of the walnut desk in a quiet corner of the library, an old book lays open. Its well-thumbed pages, impregnated with the mottled patina of age, are dry and brittle to the touch, the ink faded. For those readers who dared to sit a while and turn its pages, it was a magical book. One which enraptured with an uncanny spell and wove interminable mysteries in the minds of the unprepared.

Passages steeped in mysticism and powerful description teased the reader to pursue the printed path. Drew in the innocent who eyed its inspirational text, awakening their senses in a literary style as the story unfolded, spread out, page after page in all its glory. Myriad paragraphs, written in graphic script, beckoned to the reader to enter and join the imaginary throngs, intermingle with the characters until they became as one. Word after word invited them to unite in emotions etched on parchment, exposed for all to feel. To experience the love, the hate, the rage and the procrastination. Begged them to be absorbed in its words. To smell the aromatic sentences, baked in black and white, of homelands and foreign places. Envision the life and the culture which rose, streaming from it's pages in silent explanation. To hear the voices of the multitudes given in mute dictation. To experience, first hand, the actions of a loving embrace or a stinging slap given without visual movements.

The book, a creation perfected to transport the unwary into another world. An impression of life. Ink on paper. Designed to convey an escape, a relation, an understanding or a lesson learned. Prose full of experiences reaped from an active imagination and years of education.

Pass it from hand to hand. Keep it safe for future generations. For in the writing of that book the author left his soul ingrained in the pages.