The Magic Book

The following is a story...

and a lesson...

about freedom... and secrets...

The Magic Book

I

Upon investigating a crime of some significance, the investigator found himself on the trail of a man intent on evasion.

The man himself, finding himself the unenviable target of piercing scrutiny, chanced upon a Book that revealed to him the keys to his freedom. Whereupon, he followed the script that leapt from the Book and danced so appealing within his mind to the last letter and braced for an extraordinary transformation with unrestrained trepidation and glee.

The investigator, after pounding at length, finally threw his shoulder into the door of the home owned by the object of his investigation. To find no one and nothing.

It was a meager hut at best with cobwebs draped in corners and naught but the gloomy stare of spiders to pierce the glum dusk. He coughed and watched in dreary dismay as his breath sent a dust storm aloft. Gasping, he stepped back through the door and took a deep breath of fresh air before returning to examine further, the scene within...

For there wasn't nothing. There was a table. And upon the table, there was a book. With ginger care, he opened what was surely a tome. But it was at turns blank or filled with indecipherable scrawls. Whereupon, he shut the weighty oddity and upon the cover in gold leaf was written in lovely script: The Freedom Book.

When he stepped outside to consider where to proceed with his investigation, he encountered a young woman, who blithely walked past him and through the door before running past him again in surprise and confusion.

'Excuse me ma'am. Do you know who lived here?'

'Yes! My husband!'

'If you don't mind my asking... were you expecting him to be here?'

'Yes! I left to pick up a few things at the market just a bit ago! He was right here! You don't understand! This... this...'

She broke off. Gasping and gesturing wildly. Clearly struggling for breath.

'You don't understand! This... I... this... it wasn't like this when I left! It... it... I...'

'If you don't mind my asking...'

'What... what... who... why are you here? Are you here because its like this? Did my husband call you?'

'Well. Ma'am. I'm an investigator. We believe that your husband has some information that we need for a case. In fact, I just arrived, right before you, because I needed to ask him some questions. And I saw the same thing that you did, just now.'

'But... but... I don't understand...'

Whereupon, she slumped to the ground in bewildered weariness.

'I don't understand...'

'What don't you understand, ma'am?'

Still gesturing weakly about, she uttered empathically: 'This!'

'I'm afraid that I don't understand. I don't mean to be an utter simpleton. But, what is 'this'?'

'I left but a bit ago and everything was exactly as it was. Now, everything is like this.'

'Where's my husband? Do you know?'

'No, I'm afraid not. I was hoping you would know.'

'Oh God.'

She held her face in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably.

After some time, when dusk melted into night, she finally achieved a state whereby she could explain to the investigator that the scene within their home was unlike anything that she had ever seen. She had never seen the book. She had no idea why it would be in their home. And she feared that her husband had disappeared without a trace. New to the area, she explained that they had no family nor friends nearby and were relying on a small savings until they could find work.

To which, the investigator listened with increasing sympathy, as it became more and more evident, that she was wholly unaware of her husband's real comings and goings. To which, as the investigator, he had unfettered privy. He considered what if anything he should reveal to her of his investigation and ultimately decided that his professional obligations and his moral reservations restricted any disclosures on his part. Thus, he thanked her for her forthcoming discussion with him and instructed her to acquire the assistance of a programme that provided aide to young women such as herself.

But, as he walked away, he couldn't help but wonder what would happen to her. For her husband had surely left her as sure as he was walking back to write his report for the evening. As for how, that was still a mystery. For though the target of his investigation had been observed going into his home, he had not been observed leaving it.

II

She could barely restrain herself, abrim with restless anticipation. Before her was a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine that looped in a sweet and simple bow. She drummed her fingers across the package in nervous excitement and it echoed with deep staccato thrums.

Whereupon the door opened and she flung herself aloft: 'Happy Birthday!'

The investigator laughed and hugged his wife whose cheerful exuberance was infectious.

'It isn't my birthday!'

'But it will be!'

'Open it! Open it! Please!'

The investigator hung up his coat and set down his stack of folders and looked upon his birthday present so wrapped with care.

'I can't. It's too pretty!'

'Yes you can! Come on! I've been waiting forever! You have to open it!'

'Okay... here we go...'

As the paper fell away, the investigator felt his soul plummet into a well of ice. Stunned, his face stilled into an inexplicable expression.

'Do you like it? Isn't it special? I saw it and I immediately knew it was for you!'

'You don't like it, do you? I'm sorry...'

'Oh no no no. I love it! It just took me by surprise. I love it, I really do!'

He leaned over and kissed his wife and thanked her profusely for her thoughtfulness. To which he suggested, surely no ending could be more perfect to their wonderful evening than a stroll together under the stars.

As he closed the door firmly behind them, he looked back at the tome still nestled in its crisp brown paper packaging. Upon the cover in gold leaf was written in lovely script: The Secret Book. Identical in every way to that tome from memory, it shook him to his core to see its twin perched so innocently and so comfortably in his warm and cozy home.

III

He gasped as he felt his throat constrict uncontrollably. He heaved and gulped for air to no avail. As he slumped from his chair he knew what had transpired through that epiphany of absolute truth that arises from certain mortality, while the indubitable source of his demise gazed upon him with enigmatic dispassion.

That evening, as the investigator hung up his coat and set down his stack of folders, his wife held the Book, slowly tracing the letters curved with embossed intricacy glittering with uncanny smolder in the dim dusk.

When his wife finally broke the silence, her voice was the harsh exhalation of a voice exhausted by wretched screams.

'I've been dreaming.'

The investigator sat down, concerned by the bewildering transformation of his wife. He unhesitatingly spoke with tender attentiveness:

'I'm listening.'

'A lot.'

'About secrets.'

'About my first husband.'

She stared ahead with eyes that burned with riotous flames of fury and hatred.

'About you.'

'About what's in your heart.'

A solitary bowl of soup, chilled and congealed from having sat uneaten for hours on end, waited expectantly. At turns a shell of herself, vacant and dispirited, at turns a broken sparrow, bereft and confused, at turns a wronged lover, bitter and vengeful, his wife's emotional state fluttered like the bizarre performance of the pretense of the deranged.

Thus, the last words to fall upon the investigator's ears, as love and happiness and contentment and joy, dissolved into despair and heartbreak, was:

'If you love me, you'll drink it.'

As his breath faded and unconsciousness threatened to envelop him in unwaking darkness, he affirmed the truth from his heart that had never been untrue:

'I loved you from the first moment I saw you. Even now, I love you still and I always will.'

~ fin ~

Epilogue

As the last words of her husband lingered upon the air, silent and still, the stupor that had refused to release her from a suffocating compulsion dissipated like a whisper.

Whereupon the truth of the investigator's devotion to her was revealed with resolutely sharp focus and piercingly crystalline rebuke.

Devastated by the realization that she had wrought an inexpiable malice, she lunged before she could reconsider and scraped the vestige of soup into her mouth.

But she never attained that blissful ease of unconsciousness...

... thus she spent the remainder of her days in an asylum for the insane, wandering dark labyrinths of what ifs and whys tormented by indecipherable scrawls curved with delicate intricacy glittering with the smoldering gleam of gold leaf dancing with effortless vigor within the inscrutable freedom of a soul undone.

~ fin ~

Note

Of course, the story above is about more than freedom and secrets...

... however, like magic and good books... declaring what is as clear as starlight... is conspicuously assumptive... is it not?

- M