Paradise World, Page 2

  Prologue

  I wake up and glance at the clock. It is almost midnight. I must get up. Although still vivid, the inner words to this tale are like dewdrops that would surely evaporate with the coming of the morning light. I look at my wife. She is soundly asleep. Cat-like, I get out of bed, ever so careful lest she should wake and scatter the words into oblivion. I put on my robe in the dark and make my way to the study. Ever so gently, I shut the door behind me. I switch on the light and see a stack of books and study notes on my large, antique writing desk. I remove them and pile them onto a nearby table. Tonight they would only interfere with the flow of words screaming to get out. For just a brief second or two, I wonder whether to power up my laptop. No, I reason to myself, such innermost words from the nebulous subconscious must flow freely from hand to paper without the medium of modern distractions. Instead, I place a stack of clean, crisp paper in front of me. To my right are two large bookshelves brimming mostly with historical, literary and religious works. However, my hand reaches out to only one. Tonight, and all that weekend, it is the only book I will ever open. Slowly, almost reverentially, I open it to a page near its very end. I pick up a pen and copy four of its verses: a starting point, a reference point, a theme to the strange story I am about to relate. It is of a strange and beautiful world, a world where there was neither death nor pain, nor sorrow of any kind.