If a book is opened, should it be read to the end?
Perhaps not, if the cadence, the tempo, the interest is not there.
But what of the pang, the tinge of regret?
What if one has crossed over to the next page and found something worthwhile if she had only suspended her judgment?
It is because of time.
Or the idea of time, the idea that it is precious, that perhaps it is not forever.
Its wisps would thin and would disappear, turning everything to smoke first – and then to nothingness. That a book not worth the time is not worth pursuing to the end.
But the unfinished has a way of winding up (or wounding) the heart. There, where the possibilities of the unknown remaining unknown are rife, fermenting into the unexpected.
With books, with life, it is the same.
Both are encumbered by strange paths. Those opportunities, trail, pathways – they beckon. Some plots make it easy, some bid you follow-don’t-follow, and one dashes to what thinks is the end with fear and trepidation.
Where will it lead? Is there a trap along the way? If only one could hop and land and reach the end safely.
And that’s the lie.
No one will reach the end safely. Because death is at the end. It is the final trap.
Yet all are buoyed by the idea that there is something beyond. That maybe it is not the final chapter after all. This idea tantalizes all, placates all, succors all as everyone readies himself or herself – to be snared.
And in that somewhere, sometime, be. Or cease to be.
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