You Will See Your Gypsy

Bound.

He ran his fingernail up the back of the binding.

Bent.

The book had been opened and bent back too many times, the binding was getting weak. From the outside, his nail slipped between the weakness, he made the hole longer just a little.

“It’s falling apart,” he thought. It won’t be long now.

He loved the book. The words made sense to him. He understood the intent. When nothing else did, this did. It doesn’t matter what you think; someone somewhere sometime has thought the same thing. You are a lucky person if that person wrote the thought down, made it official, so to speak. To write it is to commit to it, more so than saying it. No turning around. Even if you rip out the page and burn it, if you rip it to shreds. It’s too late. You’ve admitted it to
yourself, no escape. Oh, and luckier still if that thought, those words set in stone, if they should somehow make their way into your life.

If you find it, don’t let it go. He knew that and he didn’t.

But now even this was getting old, even this was falling apart. It was falling apart right in his hands, right after, right before his eyes. He could be gentle, extra-careful. Hold it lightly. Open it just enough to see the type, no bending, putting no stress. Lick his tips to catch hold of the corners, no rough thumbing. Or he could fight it. He could refuse to let it die. With masking tape he could buttress the binding, he could make it stronger, give it strength. Not the same. He’d know what it really was, he would know it was only patched, he would know it was just a matter of time until even that would fail.

Besides, that’s just the cover, nothing can be done with the insides. You can’t tape up each page; you can’t hold the insides together. Even if he lovingly taped each page back in as it came unbound, the next page would do the same. He would spend all his time repairing instead of enjoying his book, taking comfort.
Should he find another book to read? He might find one he liked ok, but no book could ever take the place of this one. He would try to find the same meaning; he would try to make the same order, the same sense, of the words he found inside. Books don’t change. People do. No turning back, the commitment of the written thought. He would have to change. Would it only be delusion? Could he find happiness in different thoughts, happiness without compromise?

Would he like the new book better? What if it made even more sense? What would that say about the first book? Maybe he just shouldn’t do any more reading. Maybe he should make his own sense of things. Maybe he should commit to his own thoughts.