It begain as I cleaned up the coffeehouse where I work. It’s a small, out of the way place. Not one of those big name joints with mermaids on the front and obscure literary refrences… We get all kinds in there, lots of people just stopping in for a place to chat or read. So I hadn’t noticed anyone out of the ordinary.
What I did notice, after I’d locked the front door, and wiped down tables, was a worn looking book tucked onto the free reading material shelf. It wasn’t like anything else there, wedged between the latest Chriton novel, and something cheezy-romanceish. I was sure it had to be lost, rather than left. But, being on the free reading shelf, I didn’t feel much guilt tucking it into my satchel and bringing it home. I could bring it back to work tomorrow, easy.
Pulling it out when I got home, I was even more convinced it was a lost book. It was obviously hand-written, in a flowing caligraphic script…but in no letters I know. Arabic, maybe? There was a symbol, like an elaborate seal or mandala on the front, and a single picture inside. As I turned the pages, my hand seemed to tingle as it came close to the picture. Why?
It had been a long day, and the lettering on the page was hypnotic, almost familiar in a way I couldn’t possibly put my finger on. I must have dazed off, because it seemed I was floating through rolling brown clouds of dust, flying over a strange orange lake. And a woman’s voice…rich, deep, with an unknown accent…alone or together she said. Alone or together. Oh, she said more, but it all faded into the back of my mind. I startled…my arm flung out…I felt my hand hit the book, the strange tingle of the picture, heard a sound, as that tingling spread through my body and became a pull…a streching…I wanted to scream.
And then I was standing. Standing in the picture.
It is too much to recall right now. More later.
