Palentine's Day Sex Comet

Something Different

This book tells a story. I’m not talking about the one you’ll find on its 500 pages. 

This book has been a lot of places. It sat on the dusty, dirty floor in the basement of a haunted house attraction. It soaked in the gasoline fumes of chainsaws, came close to touching a puddle leaking from a busted hydraulics pump powering zombie puppets, and it aired out in the autumn winds next to a cup of Starbucks and other zombies, scary clowns, and dolls enjoying a smoke break.

It was out all night at a Halloween bonfire and watched the flames turn green and purple from some mysterious packet of chemicals that was thrown on top of the burning pallets.

It was questioned while minding its own business on a stainless steel bar top next to a tall glass of beer and an iron skillet of skirt steak and cheesy eggs.

It traveled from California to Florida and back. It endured a six-hour flight, opened upon a tray table under one of the last remaining overhead lights still beaming while the rest of the plane slouched and snored. A song was dangerously played on an iPhone that should’ve been in airplane mode, but the scene unfolding upon the pages demanded it to be heard. After all, the lyrics were printed right there on pages 201 and 206. And what better place to listen to “Perfect Weather to Fly” by Elbow than in an airplane in the actual air right along with the characters?

This book was promised it would be taken care of, but there were bumps, folds, stains, and more scratches than expected. It’s worn for such a short journey. It wandered room to room on too many late, late nights when the rest of the world slumbered. There are dried ripples on some pages where tears were shed. Some pages are dogeared from when there were smiles, screams of excitement, reminders of the past. It sat alone for too long of a time, but it eventually found other books—great books full of similar stories well loved and scarred—to keep it company on the shelf.

It doesn’t mind its folds and cuts anymore, because no other book in the world has the same folds and cuts. Because it tells its own story beyond the story. Because it knows it is deeply loved and not alone.

The Burning World is about survival and hope. It’s about finding people and family, connecting and reconnecting. It’s about taking it one day at a time in a world that seems to be falling apart, where no one is quite sure what's going on or what it's going to lead to. It's about those days that come along, sneak up on you, and wonderful, impossible things happen you thought you’d never see or experience again.

The story within the story…

Well, it’s about the same.