Read Online The Key to Everything by Alex Kimmell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Alex Kimmell
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hasn’t changed enough in the sky for more than a couple of minutes to have passed. Pushing your leg forward and angling your foot straight out, you stretch. You reach down to catch the book falling off of your thigh, feeling the sun-warmed leather cracked and broken against your palm. You don’t remember bringing it out here with you. You don’t even remember when you last saw it.
It feels good in your hand. Warm. Breathing. Alive.
Not giving it a second thought, you slide your chair a little closer to the table and gently set the book down. Caressing the binding with your fingers, you trace the edge of the cover slowly from one end to the other. “This is my book,” you think. “It’s a nice afternoon for a little read.” Shrugging your shoulders, you ask yourself, “Why not?”
You smell molding leaves as the cover opens.
-7-
Auden: Leaving
The first page is devoid of words. You make out smudges of different-sized fingerprints at the edges of the page. A few are scattered around the top and the bottom, but most are along the right edge. All of them are a dark reddish-brown color. The center of the page is empty, but for a brief moment, it moves. Swirling. Drawing you down. You blink, grab the top right corner, and turn to the next page.
Once again, you see no words. You move your fingers around the paper, trying to find out why it feels so real. It just feels so…right. A sharp stab, like a pinprick, hits the center of your finger, and you draw back quickly. No blood on your skin. No mark of any kind. You stare intently at the swirls and curves etched into the skin of your finger. They have always been there. You just never took the time to look at them so closely before. The phrase “I know it like the back of my own hand” springs to mind. But who has ever really memorized their own skin?
Taking the corner of the page, you lift it free and gently turn it to the next. Not surprisingly, you see no words on the empty sheet. You allow your eyes to glance to the left, at the back of the previous page. You see it. But it shouldn’t be there. You just saw the same curved line a moment ago. You flip your hand over and place your finger next to its mirror on the paper. There is no denying it. The same lines and swirls in reddish brown. It doesn’t even look wet. Your fingerprint has been there for a long time. You’ve always been in there.
Seasick and lost, you move along the path of dark curves. You feel yourself engraving into the grooves and patterns of your finger. At the same time, the ink forms letters that swim into words on the page opened before you. You don’t speak. Still, your voice etches itself into the old, decaying parchment. Suddenly there is no oxygen in the air around you. The smell of wet paper comes at you from everywhere.
You begin to read the words on the page…
Seasick and lost, I move along the path of dark curves. I feel myself engraving into the grooves and patterns of my finger. At the same time, the ink forms letters that swim into words on the page opened before me. I don’t speak. Still, my voice etches itself into the old, decaying parchment. Suddenly there is no oxygen in the air around me. The smell of wet paper comes at me from everywhere.
I begin to read the words on the page…
I jump up from my
chair and it tumbles over the side of the deck, onto the grass. The sky is still blue…the water glass is still empty…you hold your hands over your eyes and shake your head to bring things back into reality. You think about Jason and Jeremy, how much you will miss them. You think about Emily and hope she will be okay without you. You wonder why you think these things and
realize that I am going away. I am leaving. I am crying now. I haven’t cried like this since I was a little boy. It’s an end-of-the-world kind of crying. Sucking-in-my-shuddering-bottom-lip, snot-running-down-my-nose-and-not-wiping-it-away kind of crying. I’m-afraid-of-dying
It feels good in your hand. Warm. Breathing. Alive.
Not giving it a second thought, you slide your chair a little closer to the table and gently set the book down. Caressing the binding with your fingers, you trace the edge of the cover slowly from one end to the other. “This is my book,” you think. “It’s a nice afternoon for a little read.” Shrugging your shoulders, you ask yourself, “Why not?”
You smell molding leaves as the cover opens.
-7-
Auden: Leaving
The first page is devoid of words. You make out smudges of different-sized fingerprints at the edges of the page. A few are scattered around the top and the bottom, but most are along the right edge. All of them are a dark reddish-brown color. The center of the page is empty, but for a brief moment, it moves. Swirling. Drawing you down. You blink, grab the top right corner, and turn to the next page.
Once again, you see no words. You move your fingers around the paper, trying to find out why it feels so real. It just feels so…right. A sharp stab, like a pinprick, hits the center of your finger, and you draw back quickly. No blood on your skin. No mark of any kind. You stare intently at the swirls and curves etched into the skin of your finger. They have always been there. You just never took the time to look at them so closely before. The phrase “I know it like the back of my own hand” springs to mind. But who has ever really memorized their own skin?
Taking the corner of the page, you lift it free and gently turn it to the next. Not surprisingly, you see no words on the empty sheet. You allow your eyes to glance to the left, at the back of the previous page. You see it. But it shouldn’t be there. You just saw the same curved line a moment ago. You flip your hand over and place your finger next to its mirror on the paper. There is no denying it. The same lines and swirls in reddish brown. It doesn’t even look wet. Your fingerprint has been there for a long time. You’ve always been in there.
Seasick and lost, you move along the path of dark curves. You feel yourself engraving into the grooves and patterns of your finger. At the same time, the ink forms letters that swim into words on the page opened before you. You don’t speak. Still, your voice etches itself into the old, decaying parchment. Suddenly there is no oxygen in the air around you. The smell of wet paper comes at you from everywhere.
You begin to read the words on the page…
Seasick and lost, I move along the path of dark curves. I feel myself engraving into the grooves and patterns of my finger. At the same time, the ink forms letters that swim into words on the page opened before me. I don’t speak. Still, my voice etches itself into the old, decaying parchment. Suddenly there is no oxygen in the air around me. The smell of wet paper comes at me from everywhere.
I begin to read the words on the page…
I jump up from my
chair and it tumbles over the side of the deck, onto the grass. The sky is still blue…the water glass is still empty…you hold your hands over your eyes and shake your head to bring things back into reality. You think about Jason and Jeremy, how much you will miss them. You think about Emily and hope she will be okay without you. You wonder why you think these things and
realize that I am going away. I am leaving. I am crying now. I haven’t cried like this since I was a little boy. It’s an end-of-the-world kind of crying. Sucking-in-my-shuddering-bottom-lip, snot-running-down-my-nose-and-not-wiping-it-away kind of crying. I’m-afraid-of-dying
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