a page written in invisible ink

I am to myself like the wind is to the trees, invisible to each other, yet rarely leaves to lone. That walk today seems quite ordinary along the same roads I always pass. But the difference is obvious as no shadow peek behind for my whereabouts. Like the night is to the day I hid from myself to read the pages off the road. The book is old and these pages I flip everyday not reading them but only faintly remembering hints of the pictures. I walk along these roads for almost seventeen and half years and yet never read a road as I do today.

It is a hard back in a bluish green cloth cover and as I open I hear a creak like an old rusty hinge. The first page is hand painted in a deep red with the words, red banana, written above in an unusually large font. But the strange thing is that there is no banana on this page but oranges, apples, some faded vegetables and some other people’s delusion written all over it. As I stared strangely at this page for some few moments, the many tiny things on this page changed. There came a figurine, took the beautifully drawn still life then threw some tiny paper and disappeared like the dust. That tiny paper had intricate patterns drawn in a monotonous fine print that resembles the craftsmanship of our ancestors.

Turning that page and wondering about that tiny paper I slowly turned left to read the next page. Stunned and still like a stone I had to close the next page before I could see even the edge. There came a dragon wisp through the pages and almost blew a fire that nearly burned the book. It went faster than it came and when I turned I could only see the tail. Relieved that I am still able to read I turned the page and this time quickly before another speedy comes along. The second page is filled with many colours, shapes and a long text to read. On the left are many horizontally written lines of how to do’s and reminding me of the toilet. To the right I now see a new picture pasted over one of my very favourite old ones. I like the old one because it was a natural wood in a clear matt finish. Now it is all painted green but I think that painting a green colour cannot make a place green. A complementing colour to the first page of red this green is surely competing to be read more than the first. Then along the corner of the page is a little big note more airy, transparent and in two blues that resembles the sea. No wonder why I had a second look, yes because it is some many sketches from the sea. Although I like the sea it is sad to see my friends from the ocean lying so still on a page and knowing that they can never see their loved ones again. As I read along this long and ever changing page I came across changing colour. There is no sun to see the changes clearly but these rising pigments mixed in water will surely change this page in few more months. On other days and especially when the warm sun heats my back I surely cannot read these pages as slow as I am now. And I am still on the second page and yet it seems like I already read the whole book not knowing what, why and how someone ever wrote it.