Non-Fiction

Non-Fiction, (excerpt from my novel, The Gravity of Me, available April, 2011)

By

kelly a. abel

People will not worship what they can see and touch. They will, however, give credence to a dream, for a dream is hope. A dream is a wish. A dream is an infinite kingdom where possibility reigns fantastic.

One day, I'll be a story of a trial you will share with your son the night before his wedding. You will tell him of a moment of uncertainty that clouded your judgment and almost made you give up everything. You will look lovingly at your wife from an obstructed view of the kitchen, watching her dart in and out view, busy with whatever.

I am the story shared between girlfriends, the urban legend. I am the written lesson of how to crash and burn with grace. My story, so lacking credibility and rich in sensationalism that they just can't resist turning each page to see what happens next.

I am the obituary written by unknown hands that my parents read blindly. A small paragraph on an antique- beige textured card with a photograph of my smiling, youthful face on the cover. It is the face they remember, the face they want to remember. They read the paragraph, generalizing and non-descriptive in content and they cry quietly in mourning over the release of a burden. They will never read the entire story.

One day, I'll be placed on the top shelf of a bookcase in your den. Covered with dust over time and left untouched and never to be revisited. You'll glance up and see my spine, leather cracked and gold embossing faded. You won't even think of the story, but you will think about how it's been a while since the cobwebs have been cleared from that top shelf. 

You will continue to move forward with your life at the pace of snail, sleepy and slow and abandoning dreams for the safety and certainty of reality. 

Still, you find yourself on your knees, beside your bed, hands prayerful, in reverence of this. Of me.

I am and I will always be nothing more than a story you tell. I am fiction at its best and tragedy at its worst. I am never, ever seen as a biographical text or a historic account of a moment that should never be forgotten. I am the Cat in the Hat. I am the scribing of youth and discovery. I am The Lord of The Rings. I am truth swallowed by fantastic beasts and heroes and lore. I am a parable within the cannon that binds the living.

I am not real. I never, ever was...not to you, not to anyone.  I am just text on paper, reading as different stories to different sets of eyes. I am a glossy, three- dollar porn rag. I am the one-thousand paged horror novel, creating phobias within your subconscious. I am a Victorian romance, unbelievable and daft to the modern reader. I am a science fiction masterpiece, a legend trailblazing between planets and stars.

I am epic.