Beginnings

The cover of the small book is blank bar the title reference. It is embossed in old fashioned type, the letters dig into the creamy cartridge paper. Like the front page of a movie script trying too hard. A smudge of lipstick smeared across the front like a butcher’s thumbprint. The red makes me feel uneasy. An omen in a real library or a deliberate message here in the depths of the new unreal.

Then I open it to the greeting. First page. The words whisper to me.

‘Hello Garden.’ Two words are there, stark against the white page that doesn’t exist in the library that cannot be.

I can hear a voice say the words.

She knows I am here. Maybe she has even invited me.

 ‘Hello Garden.’

I turn the page and memories I never knew I had raise like floodwater. I am condemned.