By Isabelle Gerhart
Dear Readers, Book Worms, and Story Lovers,
I enter the door to the back of your mind. I see your memories. They are boxed up, nicely compartmentalized in your brain. I feel like a kid on Christmas. When you open a book, you have opened a window into my world; the words are your key. But you have also opened a door for me to your mind.
I know my story. You are about to read my line about friendship. I go over to a memory you have of you and your best friend. You are young and ice skating. The memory is a little fuzzy. You read my quote. I pull out the box stored in your head and open it. The memory is sharp and clear. You can picture it behind your eyes. This line will last in your heart. It will forever connect to this memory because of me. I am glad I can revive you and let you relive the past.
Be forewarned if you let the villain of this story in. He’ll unbox all the woes you so carefully packaged up with great stain bows.
That’s the funny thing about memories. They only exist in your head. No matter whether you speak them aloud, write them down, or revisit a photograph, the actual vision is incorporeal. It is only in your head. You speak and frame it from a unique point of view. Only from your lens can you see what was preserved exclusively in mind’s eye.
As a character in a book, I am also not tangible. I can be depicted, drawn, represented, and described, but you have your own way of picturing me. You hear my speech in a voice you have created. You came up with the way I should sound, and that thought is forever in your head. This imagery exists only in your head.
Since I can only be given life in your mind, and your memories only exist in the back of your brain, you invite me in when you open the pages of a book. I can sort through and rifle among your memories. You see, the covers of a book are doors. When you crack them and peel through those word-filled windows you call pages, I see you. I peer back. The eyes really are windows to the soul.
I figure out what is important to you based on what resonates with you. I know you can't stand but also love a good cliffhanger since you eagerly turn page after page of the book I have sprung from long after you should. I see the thought you have of it being late and the mental image you have of the green digital numbers from the clock by your bed. You keep reading, so I keep roaming. I uncover your secrets. Don’t worry, I won’t share them. I am only fictional afterall. Just a figment you breathed life into.
I know you like happiness since you smiled when you read about my joy. I know you feel things deeply because your heart thumped and I felt the fever-ish thrill of your fingers as you turned the page to read the climax. You were so eager to find out whether me, the little hero, the simple protagonist could win, that it made me smile.
I know you get sad because I watched you cry when I got bullied and when my lover hurt me. I felt your sympathetic sorrow at my getting scorned when your teardrops splashed onto my page. Your feelings have forever wrinkled that page. It’s okay; I don’t mind. It’s your way of making yourself a part of the story. You weren’t written in, but you have made a mark just as I have made a mark on you.
Dear reader, you have been imprinted in the print. I know you are an invested human with a sense of justice because I felt your gut knot at the plot twist. I was surprised that happened too.
I know you are optimistic because you hope for the best as you read my fabled trials. You are rooting for me! Has it ever occurred to you that you want me to triumph so badly and believe in me so deeply since you also want to succeed in your life? You are the main character in your own saga. The stage for your storyline is just a little messier. Less edited, more real time. Not something you can bookmark. Time turns your pages as you turn mine.
With each new event and plot point, I unbox more memories in your mind. I find life experiences in you from the real world that truly aren’t that different from my fiction contained in ink. I know you feel love because you thought of so many people when you read my innermost thoughts, printed in a nice paragraph. Your thoughts are not always laid out in pristine perfectly ordered sentences. Perhaps that is why you like this fantasy world and read between the lines. Maybe that’s why you love the clean white space of the page that hugs my dialogue. I have dialogue; you have conversations. Maybe you’re wishing for clean space and evenly spaced turns in the words the world shares with you and that’s why you love me and get lost in my world.
I know that you get mad because visions of red dance around and blur my image when you thought about throwing this book across the room. Trust me, I know how annoying villains can be. I hope you realize that you connect to my made up struggles so deeply because you have faced your own antagonists in the world. I have seen this to be true as I have rummaged through your mind.
I hope you know I also saw the wonderful successes you store in glimmering shelves in your heart as you read about my triumphs. You really do have so many beautiful thoughts. I saw your surprise, joy, and bittersweet smile as you read the resolution. You have loved my story and are sad to close the book. I am sad you are closing the door to my world too. But don’t worry. It doesn’t have to end. You see, you have memorized quotes and pieces of my story as you went. You have memorized me.
I have memorized you too. I live on in the visions in your mind, the feelings in your heart, and the uplifting wonders now in your soul. All book characters long to be read and given life by you. We want our pages to be worn and our story to be passed through many hands. We were created to inspire.
You see, by adventuring in my world, you explored yourself. I may be gone and contained, back in the book I call home, but I opened a lot of boxes before my story was over. You are now left with thoughts all over your head. New and old thoughts and visions spread across your mind. I live on. I have become a part of you and you a part of me.
Besides, you can always reread. You and I both grin as you open the pages to flick through the life that is yours and mine. What will we explore today? What shall you do with all your thoughts? Who will you tell? What did you learn? Did my theme reach your heart? Do you feel that lingering message in your mind? Is my book another box among all the other building blocks that make up your life?
How beautiful that something so intangible can make a difference in the world! How lucky I am that you picked me as your favorite character so I could meet you! How wonderful words are! As you revisit me and flip the pages, I shall always be there to greet you as a friend. You are welcome in my world, and I am so glad you invited me into yours.
You know me, and I know you. Thank you for taking the time to memorize me, feel my fears, and believe that there can be a connection between you and me forged by imagination and sustained through time. How lucky I am to have been remembered by you. I hope you are honored I memorized you too. You are never alone, for I am always looking back at you. Let my eyes be your eyes and I will take you on marvelous adventures that are not only contained between the copyright page and “the end.”
I hope you stand a little straighter, feel a little smarter, gain a little wisdom, and have more back bone after cracking open the spine that contains me. May your footsteps be bolder after walking through my plot and treading among my friends. May you always remember that you have someone on the same page and may we always meet each other again and again, page after page.
Thank you for loving my world and for weaving me into the fabric of your universe. I am so glad I could exist alongside your memories. I am not tangible, and you will never touch your memories, but I am so glad you could feel something anyway. May we always move toward “happily ever after” together.
Thank you for making my conclusion impermanent by knowing me. I have gotten to know you too. I have memorized you too, as have all the characters in your favorite books.
Love,
The Storyworld.