Turn the Page

Have a care getting lost in your favorite book...

While I was walking in the pages of my favorite book, there came a man who didn't understand that he was a chapter or two too late. He said he felt disjointed and out of place.

"I haven't signed anything, I don't think, eh...?" He had a British accent, which struck me at once charming and odd. He sounded uncertain, fretting, a bit timid. I didn't recognize him; neither did I have any clue what he was talking about with regard to signatures.

"I say, have you signed already?" I stated that I was quite unsure what he had signed. "Back on page 158, good man."

I pulled a crumpled table of contents out of my coat pocket. I stepped off to the right margin so others might not bump into me and get tangled in what was, quite honestly, a very purple patch of prose. I scanned the table.

1) Golfing With Harry..............Page   3
2) Rented Rooms....................Page  42
3) Tomorrow is Mother's Day........Page  66
4) Harry, Jerry, and Mum...........Page  89
5) Marnie Makes an Entrance........Page 155
6) Golfing With Marnie.............Page 167
7) Offer of a Lifetime.............Page 193
8) A Meeting of Two Gentlemen......Page 215
9) Attac............

The table of contents trailed off, unfinished. Distracted from the man's question (and honestly a bit annoyed by his interruption of my morning trip, for which I had allotted only a half hour), I looked at me feet and then behind me, and there I found the page number printed: 212. Of course the rest of the contents were unknown to me; I hadn't--wait! Signed anything...? I glanced back at the paper in my hand.

7) Offer of a Lifetime.

That was the part where Jerry adjusted his will in Mother's favor. I suddenly remembered this, and I told the man I had signed, hoping this was over and that I could resume finding my way through this twisting passage.

He made a suddenly savage face, struck his closed left fist into the open palm of his right hand. "I knew it!" he hissed. "How do I get back, old boy?"

I shrugged, chafing at being called "old boy." I remembered Gatsby and how he had the same irritating tendency. I dismissed the man and his apparent contractual confusion and walked forward. The prose resumed thier placid pace, and just up the next block, I saw a newsboy hocking an evening special between paragraphs. "Listen up, special story! Get your copy, SPECIAL, get it now!" As I neared, I could finally read the headline:

Chapter 9: Attack From Behind!

But I was still too far away to read the single column of print clearly, though. I glanced down at the table of contents in my hand. I had just enough time see the nex chapter start to appear before the world went dark with a deep, hollow thud.

10) Bad news From the Hospital........