The Ever Changing World

Written by: Denisse L. Burgos

Dedicated to: Georgie A.

Books are my escape from the physical world. I have practiced escaping for so long, I can fall into the abyss of my mind, conjured by the stories I have glorified in different stages of my life. I am able to appreciate the creativity and challenges authors manifest page by page, sentence by sentence. At first the feeling of escaping was subtle in my mind and felt unnecessary. I would only read to acquire points for school and nothing more. That was until I met her. She was the beacon of hope my small heart needed in my world of constant chaos. She opened my mind to new possibilities. Although I had already been reading long before I met the savior of my imagination, she gave reading a new purpose I hadn’t known about until she taught me.

A whiff of day-old hair dye filled my nose. The softness of her freshly washed hair brushed against my face. Her laughter ringed into my ears, making me blush. I never understood why I liked to smell her hair, but whenever I did it reminded me of home. The dull glow of her lamp flowed gently onto her delicate gaunt face. She was all tucked into her bed, with two fluffy pillows supporting her frail frame. In her thin wrinkled hands was a thick small book encompassed with a man and woman holding each other. Curiosity got the best of my ten-year-old self and asked why she was reading before bed if she no longer went to school. She simply said, For the adventure. I made a face that made her laugh and made me pout not a second later. I was confused as to what she meant but was tired enough to call it a night and go to bed. Nights like those became more common, as I would always tell her good night before heading off to bed across the hall.

One night when the stars were glowing iridescently against the dark, I crawled into her bed while she held onto a new book with sand and the open ocean beckoning to be read. Looking up I saw her catlike, stunning blue eyes shimmer with excitement. The air in her room was electric and filled with possibilities. She told me to close my eyes and to not only listen to her voice but picture the words that she would be speaking. Upon closing my eyes, I heard the pages rustle open as she found what she was looking for. She took a small raspy breath and began to read. Her voice was captivating with every word she spoke. She became alive as she read the words on the page that awakened my imagination to a whole new world. It was this moment, as she read aloud to me that I began to understand where the adventure came from when reading. The passage she had read to me described the scenery of sailing at sea while the sun set, when suddenly pirates took over the ship belonging to the Queen’s only daughter. As she read the words I began to slip from the physical world and into a new one filled with the open sea, pirates, royalty, and adventure. I didn’t understand it at the time but these moments with her would change how I saw the world and would guide my choices in life.

The aroma of freshly printed paper full of possibilities engulfed my senses. My heart began to race as I walked through the glass double doors. I was walking into a world of heavenly bliss. Rows and rows of shelves covered from top to bottom of all kinds of fresh new pages. I bee-lined to the young adult section, ready to take on a new series. At this point of my new exposure to reading, she always knew where to find me because I would look at every single book available in the young adult section. These trips to the bookstore were my second favorite activity to do with her. The first was and always will be crawling into bed next to her while she would read her book and I read mine, in our own worlds but always close together. Some days we would take turns reading our books aloud. When it was my turn to read aloud, I’d be shy because I stumbled a lot on my words which made me feel embarrassed. She never made fun of me for doing so but would encourage me to practice reading aloud more so that I could feel more confident sharing my lovely voice, which at that point, I knew she was just being nice. I took her advice and practiced reading aloud so that I can have the same captivating reading voice she used. It took me a lot longer than I had hoped for to feel more confident in my reading voice, but she was there every step of the way, even when I’d feel like giving up altogether.

* * * * *

From a distance I heard the murmuring of the crowd. People were getting to their seats as the bugler played his song. Stakes were high and people were getting nervous. Walking to the gates you could hear the trotting of hooves on the freshly paved dirt. The sun was shining its harsh rays among those near the finish line. Suddenly, they reached the gate, locked in and ready to go. At the sound of the bells, everyone seemed to take a deep breath all together. AND OFF THEY GO, RUNNING OUT UP IN FIRST WE HAVE .... I could never fully understand what the announcer was saying, especially when the names would be sets of random words put together. But the last hundred meters was when everyone would start getting wild with cheers and screams as their horse approached the finish line. They would come in a blur but the moment the first horse crossed the finish line, it's like time slowed down as everyone went crazy or quiet in defeat. This was her second home. The smell of horses and freshly cut grass always filled the air. In between races she had me sit in a boxed seat while she worked her sections. It was a beautiful sight being able to look out onto the field with the tall purple mountains frost tipped with melting snow. Whenever I had to go to work with her, which was a rare but welcomed occasion for me, she encouraged me to bring a book. The first time I ever went to work with her I didn’t understand why I would need to but after experiencing the thirty minute waiting period between each race it all made sense. I took these outdoor reading experiences with pleasure. Being outside added to the depth of leaving this world for another within the confines of my mind. The gusts of wind through the valley swept me off my feet allowing me to fly, while the frost tipped mountains brought me to the land where mystical creatures roamed the earth. To some degree, I believe she planned for this to happen. It was like she knew once I read outside, my senses would awaken in a new way I had yet to experience until that day.

But like the blur from a race, everything slowed down, and I had felt the most defeated. My beacon of light shone no more. Everything became dull and grey. I was no longer able to find the other worlds besides the physical one I so desperately wanted to leave. I knew she would’ve wanted me to live on and not dwell on her absence, but I was stuck and lost. I felt more alone than I ever had before, in need of that escape I so desperately took for granted in the earlier exposure to her kind of reading. The books and worlds I cared for and loved for years suddenly felt like a burden too heavy to lift. I tried lifting these burdens in hopes to reconnect to the worlds I left behind, but it was no use against the demons that clouded my thoughts. Days began to intertwine themselves like the never-ending vines that wrap around a tree. Everything was a blur except for the dark, quiet, loneliness that surrounded me. I became a passenger to the vessel that was my body, roaming in the vast sea of my mind. I was broken into little fragments, the shattered bits of my life unable to be glued back together. There was a blackness in my heart like the black hole that sucks all the life out of everything. The demons in my head took advantage of the nothingness I felt, whispering the beauty of my untimely demise. They murmured words of hate and self harm, words that would take over my body as if it weren’t my own. I no longer sought to escape the chaos surrounding my life but rather welcomed it, until enough was enough.

Almost a year had passed, and my body and mind could no longer bear the constant battles against my inner demons. With the help of those closest to me, I was able to rediscover the light I had once lost. I was finally able to realize that one is never gone forever. I had reopened my heart and let myself get lost in the warmth of others. The clouds that hovered in my thoughts no longer dictated my life as I let the sun fill my mind with light. As much as I still welcomed the never-ending chaos in my life, I found myself needing to escape from this world through the light given to me by the stories created by others. The first time I was able to grasp onto a new book for my own pleasure I cried bittersweet tears. This is what I was missing. Through the veil of darkness, I had forgotten the beautiful escape and adventure she had shown me those years ago.