*

‘For God created man immortal, and made him in the image of his own eternity.’
– The ‘Twentieth’ Leaf

The preceding image we had to own did not seem to us particularly god-like.

We turned the leaf:

The Twenty-First Leaf

…Although that description most definitely did.

Finally we came to the last leaf of the little gold-plated book.
It did not come before time.
Already a golden dawn was beginning to blaze through the blinds of our study window.

The Twenty-Second Leaf looked like this:

We walked to our bedroom in a daze, collapsed on the bed, and fell into a fitful sleep.
We dreamed of two rooms the exact reverse of each other.
One was in shadow.
The other was lit.
We awoke around Noon.
We walked into the living room to find the window open and the little golden book gone.
We fell to our knees and…