Eli finally finishes "Les Miserables" and feels empty

Alternatively titled: Books are malevolent creatures

It's finished, over and done with. More beautiful and tragic then we could have possibly anticipated, melodrama done RIGHT.

But what are we to do now?

We've been left high and dry. Another closed book to sit on our shelves, another book to mock us. Oh yes, and mock us they do. We see them looking at us with those smirks, we hear what they whisper to each other when they think we're asleep. They say:

"Oh there she goes again, getting her heart broken."
"You'd think she'd have learned by now not to fall for something destined to end. You'd think she'd remember the despair, the emptyness-"
"-The gaping hole-in-your-heart pain hidden in the final words of each and every one of us?"
"Oh yes."
"QUITE."
"Well, what does she expect to happen?"
"You know, a lunatic IS defined as one who repeats the same actions yet expects a different outcome."
"Well I think that fits her to a tea."
"Oh yes."
"QUITE."

Those bloody books. They beckon to us, they do, we've seen it happen. They seduce us so that we forget about the inevitable end, getting closer with each turn of the page no less. "Just one more chapter" they breathe "just one more". And we follow along all contentedly until WHAM!!! no pages left. The cover slams shut and the only sound in our wasteland of a soul is faint, cruel laughter.

And then sometimes we go back, desperate to rekindle that first spark, the one that drew us in to begin with. But even though we may not remember the details, we still know what's coming, we know how it all ends, and nothing is as compelling as that very first time.

Now, just as we knew it would, it has happened again. We can feel the despair setting in.

They truly are malevolent, those dastardly novels!

Oh, what's a poor girl to do?



elielieli