Burning Books

Books make a very distinctive sound when they burn. I don’t know if you’ve ever burned one, or been nearby when it burns. But it is different than anything else. Don’t ask me to describe it. I can’t. I don’t think there’s really any difference in sound between a book and anything else, but it’s just… knowing it’s a book, you know? You feel guilty, you feel satisfied, you feel regretful, you feel accomplished… All at the same time. I guess it’s that emotion that makes burning a book different.

You also don’t just set them in the fire. You throw them. Launch them. Like bad memories you try to hurl them away. Sometimes they fall out but you don’t have time to care, you just toss more after the lucky survivor. You’ll get it later. You scramble to find more, rush to continue feeding the flames that flare up and ask for more in their crackling snapping way. Why are you in such a rush? They’re not going to run. I guess if you stop, you’ll have time to think. If you have time to think, you’ll realize what you’re doing. If you realize what you’re doing… It’s better to just keep going. Finish the job.

The thoughts that do run through your head though… They’re not even real thoughts. Just… pictures. Feelings. Memories. They are what you’re really trying to burn away. Maybe if you expel from your life those things that make you think, make you feel, you will just forget about everything that ever hurt you. Everything that brought you down. Everything that killed your dreams. It’s better to be numb right? Than to feel everything so deeply?

As the books sit there, blackening, flaming, burning, smoldering… Do you feel better now? Why not? Isn’t this what you wanted, to jettison from your life everything that brings you painful feelings and thoughts and memories?... What is it then? What are you after?

You want to know where the answers to all your questions are? Put your hand to your chest. Move it around a little until you feel something. It should be a sort of soft pounding, a rhythmic little tap tap tap.

It’s called a purpose. You have it, I have it, she had it, everyone has it. Now you’re sitting here in the smoke, in the ashes of all those burnt books, wondering, where do I go from here? What now? I just lost my best friends, my last connection to everything I’ve lost, everything I’ve dreamed of…

Books do make a very distinct sound when they burn. While other things, be it wood, paper, charcoal, whatever all accuses, shouts “Why did you do this to me?” books just… accept. They accept you. Your troubles, your weaknesses, your insecurities… Books just accept everything that is you. That includes the pain that drove you temporarily mad and drove you to destroy them. Those books died… for you. Are you going to make their sacrifice be in vain?

So get up. Wipe away your tears. Clean up the ashes. The past can’t hurt you now.

That sound? The one her books made as you burnt the last bridge between you and her?

It’s forgiveness.