The Next Chapter

Untitled | Madeleine Cook | Clay

The Next Chapter  by Erika Miller

It’s hard to start a book, but ending one is just as tough. This is the story of my book. 

My book was lovely, a strong bone spine with ivory pages, a black velvet cover and a green silk bookmark.

This is how I remember. Events marked with page numbers, like six, or eighteen, or two hundred. My first true friend? Page twenty-two. My first time winning a game of dodgeball? Page nine hundred and three. My middle school graduation? Page two thousand and forty-seven.

I folded the corners of these pages because they hold meaning to me. Each held importance to me. The fact that I am worthy of love, the fact that I have talent, and the fact that I have knowledge. At a certain point, the page numbers became blurry. After two thousand and forty-seven, the pages seemed to repeat. Memories seemed the same. Days I would wake up with that awful morning taste from what I had eaten the night before, and been too tired to brush out. My limbs felt like stone, breaking and reforming into their next positions, cracking and snapping horribly as they do. My eyes felt like they were full of sand, but I continued to write with glee as I had always done, no one would write this book for me. After a while I couldn’t tell one page from the next. 

One day, I wrote a page that changed me. My pen moved as swiftly as it always did, when I realized what had been written. 

It couldn’t be, I was the author. Why would I write something like this? It was meaningless; authors write for a reason, right?

I scratched out the pen strokes, resenting that the words had the gall to form themselves as they had. As I did so, the ink began to bleed. It bled all over the page. I tried to rip it out, but by that point it was in the spine. I checked the folded corners of those pages I hold dear, I winced in pain as I felt the wet, warm blackness begin to cover my hands. And then my arms. And then my chest. Soon, the darkness had reached my toes and back up to my head. I gritted my teeth in anger. These words had the audacity to defy me, their author? I threw the book on the floor, its inky blackness splattering as it landed. I corrected myself, stood straight up, and put on the same smile I always had. My book was alright. It was okay, I told myself. It was a story that yielded to me, and to me only. It would be alright later. I tossed the ruined page, the one that dared defy me. I picked up the book and placed it in the same place it had always sat, on my desk, to the left of my stationary, and to the right of my lamp. 

I resolved to shower, this wretched darkness covering me would not last forever. I stepped into the warm, steamy shower, scrubbing at my skin and hair and singing as I always did. I was sure I had cleaned myself more than I ever had, but the black stained my skin still. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. I dried myself, scrubbing at my face until I felt like my skin must be raw, but still the darkness remained. I calmed myself, it would be alright later. This ink was my voice, it had no free will of its own. I controlled it.

I awoke to the same feelings as had become routine lately, that awful morning flavor, my stiff limbs, and the sand filled eyes, but something was wrong. I couldn’t move, it was as if I was weighed down. I looked down at myself, and still, I was covered in the darkness. I had told myself it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. I lay there for hours waiting for the darkness to dissipate, but it never did. I finally gathered the strength to stand up and observe my book. 

The ruined page remained. 

I threw it from my window. I couldn’t bear to look at it, and yet once I turned back, there it was, the same as always. I looked at my hands and clasped my face, before collapsing back into slumber.

I awoke several times more, continuing to observe the unfinished collection of pages sitting atop my desk. Minutes passed, then hours, and before I knew it, it had been years since I had inscribed anything into its pages, and yet there it sat. On my desk, as always. Each time I went under, I told myself This time, this time when I wake up, everything will be right, and each time I rose, I was proven wrong. By this point, the ink had bled to cover the desk, the walls, and nearly the door. The once yellow lamp was now a sickly black. The stationary, once brimming with possibilities was now useless.

I waited and waited for it to end. I hoped one day I would not wake, but that day never came.

I watched the open pages grow ever darker, until one day I had forgotten what I wrote that was so horrible that I let it consume me. And so I read.

“These words hold no meaning to you except the meaning you give them. You are not evil, nor are you perfect, and yet you are both at the same time. Choose to accept, or don’t, that’s your choice. 

“We love you.”

I had let everything go bad… because of this? I chuckled to myself, it seemed silly. Yet all the evidence was all around me. The blackness still covering my whole being. I sat down in my worn chair and picked up the pen once again. I had only one more thing to write.

Signed, 

Erik

I finally closed the book and set it down. It was finished. The relief washed over me, as the darkness left. I felt clean and safe. Only one part of me remained spoiled, my hand. 

This is alright. I told myself.

I didn’t need this book. I tucked it under my arm and stepped outside, feeling the cool, autumn breeze for the first time in ages.

I set my book on a pile of sticks, and commenced to light it ablaze. I would not let these pages continue to dictate how I wrote my story. 

I glanced back at the burning pages, catching a glimpse of my signature.

That doesn’t look right, I thought.

I rushed inside to grab my pen once again, feeling it's cool plastic in between my fingers, I added a single, solitary letter.

Signed,

Erika

That felt okay. That felt right.

No one will read this book. My years of work were reduced to ash in seconds. I glanced at my stained hand, thinking about how I sacrificed so much for nothing. But it was okay. That was only the first chapter of my life. I think it’s time I start the next.