Knowledge

Before I share this story, I would first like to apologize for the month long hiatus. I’ve been really busy with school lately (I just finished a massive 15 page paper), so I often didn’t find myself having time to post something during the weekend. In addition to that, I didn’t really have anything to post. I have a few stories, but I don’t want to just share stories. Hopefully I’ll see Captain Marvel in the near future so I can review that, and I will review that eventually, but until then, here’s a short story.

They say knowledge is power, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Knowledge is nothing more than the key to a person’s death. Children live in blissful ignorance until the cold world brutally forces itself upon them, forcing them to grow up or damning them in the process. Sometimes both.

I don’t claim to be genius. Far smarter men have boasted of that nominal blasphemy. No, I am just a jaded young man, made old by the world and its virulent knowledge.

Growing up I was always the skeptic. I never trusted magicians and clowns, and I almost always figured out how they performed their tricks. Because of this curiosity, my parents foolishly labeled me as “brilliant.” I wasn’t brilliant, I was just observant, but little traits like that are lost upon the ignorant. And that is all that man is, an ignorant animal trying to make himself feel better by pretending that he knows the secrets of the world. No one truly wants to know the secrets of the world. We may claim that we do, but if we knew the truth, the mere thought of it sends shudders down my spine.

Why am I so jaded? I assume that’s what everyone is wondering of course, and I’ll tell you. I may just be some nineteen-year-old kid, but I’ve lived far, far longer than that. Ugh; I’m unraveling again.

After going off to college, I quickly became bored with the mundane coursework. In order to compensate for my prodigious amount of free time, I spent my time reading in the school library and prowling old bookstores. Looking back, maybe I already knew that it was easier to escape my problems by dealing with someone else’s. So I read and read and read. I read Blake. I read Tolkien. I read Herbert. I read Austen. I read Lovecraft. I read everyone. It was fun traveling to new worlds and learning about them, and I also enjoyed traveling to new locations in the search of this knowledge. It was the biggest mistake of my life.

One of the bookstores that I Googled was completely abandoned when I actually arrived. Still, I had come all the way, so I figured that I might as well look inside. I saw one single bookshelf through the dirty, cracked window, so I decided to enter. I pushed open the decrepit door and walked towards the bookshelf. My feet crunched over what I assumed was broken glass. Maybe it was.

When I got to the shelf, I saw that all it had was H.P. Lovecraft. I sighed, because as much as I loved Lovecraft, I had read all of his stories. But then one book caught my eye. It was the only one that was bound in leather. I picked it up and looked at the cover. The words “Necrnomicon” were etched into the front. I sighed again, this time because it was so clearly a crappy fan-fiction. It genuinely appalled me that someone would make a fake Necronomicon,then be so incompetent that they misspelled it this badly. Still, my curiosity forced me to leaf through the book and see what was in it. I was pleasantly surprised that whoever wrote this fan-fiction did a genuinely good job. I was so impressed that I even decided that I would make a better version of it. And since this was an abandoned building, I left with the book, and all of my money.

When I got back to my room on the college campus, I diligently began transcribing the words from the “Necrnomicon” into my Necronomicon. When I was done, I looked at my phone and became very, very confused. I left to go to the bookstore at 1:30 in the afternoon, and I got back at 2:30, yet my phone said it was 1:25 in the afternoon. I walked over to the window and opened the blinds. It was too bright outside to be past 3. I turned and looked at my alarm clock, and it read 7:06. Now I was really confused. When I turned around, it was dark outside. I started to break out into a cold sweat.

“It’s time distortion.” A voice said.

“Who’s there?” I asked.

“Are you talking to me?” you asked.

“Yes?” I responded.

“Oh, um, I don’t know what to say. How are you talking to me?”

“Who are you?” I asked perplexed.

“I’m me.” You said. “Where is this voice coming from? I’m alone in my room reading and I hear a voice.”

“What does the voice sound like?” I was growing more and more uneasy.

“There you go again, who’s talking?” you were growing panicky too.

“I’m here. My name’s Brian. What’s going on? Hey, are you…”

Jim slammed the book shut and tossed it away. “I’m sorry what?” He was in utter disbelief. Here he was, reading some story in one of the countless anthologies that he had lying around, and he started to hear a voice. “I need a drink.” Jim got up and walked into his bathroom. He turned the faucet on and put his hands underneath the refreshing stream. The cool water cascaded down his hands and arms as he tried to splash his face.

“I need some sleep.” He murmured to himself. It must have been his imagination. Yeah, that was it. He was so absorbed by the story that he imagined the interaction. Besides, it’s impossible to communicate with fictional characters. It seemed insane even considering the possibility. It was his imagination. It was his imagination. It was his imgination. It was his imgnation. It was his imgntion. It was his imgntn. It was his mgntn. It was his nmgtn. It was his nnmgt. It was his nntmg. It was Nntmg.

 

“This book is freaking dumb.” Alice angrily said as she threw it at her boyfriend.

“So you don’t like it?” Mike said with an awkward smile.

“No I don’t like it. I hate how the author is clearly trying to mess with the reader by switching it around and making it seem like there’s some Eldritch Horror behind everything even though he just sucks as a writer and should stop writing.” She responded even angrier than before.

“Geez you hate this guy,” Mike murmured.

“It’s not that I hate him,” Alice relented. “It’s just he’s not very good at imitating Lovecraft or trying to use his universe. Lovecraft’s protagonists were tortured by the knowledge that they were ultimately meaningless in an uncaring cosmos. This guy’s protagonist is just an edgy teenager that thinks he’s smart.”

“But what about the other protagonist, the one you just got to?” Mike asked curiously.

“How should I know? I just got to him and he hasn’t been developed, like, at all.” She paused. “How did you know I had just gotten to the second protagonist?”

“I assumed that’s why you were so irritated.” Mike shrugged. “It irritated me the first time that I read the book. To be honest I still hate the book but it’s easily one of my favorites.”

“That’s…a paradox.” Alice replied.

“Yeah I know.” He kissed her forehead. “I just think it’s refreshing how the author breaks the fourth wall. You see it all the time in movies and TV shows, but never in books.”

“Huh I wonder why?” she asked sardonically. “It’s because in movies and TV shows and comic books it’s funny. In a book it comes off as awkward and stupid.”

“So you want to stop reading?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” Alice replied.

“How about you? Do you want to stop reading?”