The Book
phaidenbauer • 25 Mar 2024 •
“Huh, I’ve never seen that book” the librarian told himself while taking it out of the shelf. An old leather binding, worn throughout the years, just like him. He turned it around to see who the author of this long forgotten story might be.
Considering it’s weathering, it must have been in the library for ages. “No author, and not title? That’s odd” the stream of thoughts continued. But the book captured the full attention of the librarian now, the unknownness made him curious, and so he opened it.
“For you”, what a strange dedication the old man thought. “He was born in July 1966 near Vienna” the first few lines wrote. “I was born in 66 too?” the man murmured to himself, more questioning his own past than thinking about facts.
He continued to read, “raised by his loving parents”. “Wait, was that book about me?” the librarian thought to himself. “That can’t be, who would write a book about me and place it here, for me to find?”
He was hesitant to put it back and write it off as some kind of joke by his coworkers. But who would put in so much effort placing it exactly in that place on the shelf for him to find it.
He kept on reading, and his childhood memories unfolded in the following chapters. As he lost the sense of time, reading about his past, what he could remember and stories he couldn’t remember, it dawned on him: “I’ll have to read the end”.
He fumbled with the pages to reach the end, as he dropped the book and fell to his knees before falling over. “You fool. You couldn’t wait for the ending and skipped the fun part that would have been” were the last words his eyes managed to grab. He was dead.
So here I am trying fiction. What a strange experience writing something entirely different to my normal writings. Based on a writing prompt from Freewrite, written on my Freewrite Alpha.
Comments
Nice! It looks like the Freewrite is doing its job.
@Winkletter I put my phone on mute and set a timer for 15 minutes. Although I had quite a lot to edit (it seems like the Freewrite is eating keys sometimes), it was an interesting experience. It looks like the Balcony will become my “writing place”, we’ll see.
So YOU have time for fiction. 🤣