The Main Character

You think this would begin like many stories with a book opening. ‘Once Upon A Time’. This is not that story.

I was given this book from my grandmother before she died and told to never open it in the presence of others. It was a magic book.

From the front cover it was made to look like a magician’s guide to learning magic and it would only look like blank pages when anyone else tried to open it. My grandmother told me stories of the places she had visited through the book and the friends she had met. She also explained that the book does have blank pages at the back so I can fill my own stories on the page.

I went to grab my pen the first time she gave me the book, as I am a storyteller myself. She wrapped her hand around my wrist in a tight grip. ‘Do not write in it, it will convert your dreams like the rest of the pictures.’

One night I had a horrible dream where the castle was overruled by a tyrannical king with a thirst for the blood of his enemies to be placed around the castle moat. I woke up gasping for air and breathing heavily. It scared me and it took a few days to realise it was a page in the storybook. The page is a tinted grey, darker than the rest of the pages.

Grandmother never told me what to do if a nightmare entered the book and I am starting to notice the other pages slowly becoming the same grey colour.

I again had the dream and saw the characters of the other stories captured in the king’s dungeon and parts of their culture were destroyed; flags burnt, flowers crushed and animals slaughtered.

To think I ruined all my grandmother’s dreams in one dream that soiled over time.