Good, They Said, But Dark, Quite Dark

https://youtu.be/EaxZ6rtL0WA
.

The book was good, they said, but dark, quite dark.

Indeed before the man had left the park where

they had given him the thing, the sky began to ring

with black and realized itself as if the Book had

.

painted it, as if to warn him what it had in store

for him, the heavy load it bore that he would have

to help to bear, and how its story took no prisoners –

in fact, left nothing breathing anywhere. The black

.

in back of him began to wisp off tendrils of itself,

like coal smoke, gasps of charcoal exhalation streaking

through the yellow air, presaging despair, attempting

to regain its proper place, its only habitable space,

.

which was the Book. Power emanated from the tome,

repulsing him, engulfing him, revealing its intent

to govern him irruptively as soon as he reached home.

He gathered this from what he felt but also what they’d

.

told him about how the Book could be expected to

proceed. We wondered, why’d they give it to him then?

We’re glad that we recalled what never had remotely

gladdened us before. He’d never learned to read.

.