The breath of a book

Whenever I hold a book in my hand I love to stroke its spine and let my fingers absorb the words on the binding. My favorite type of book is one with deckle-edged pages. I love the feeling I get when I begin a new book. It's as if the ink swells through the pages and runs through onto my hands and across my skin until the whole story is etched into my heart. A whole new world in the palm of my hand is discovered as I open the cover. But when I close it again, it sings to me as if it were a siren. Pleading what only time can bring. And that smell of dust-lined pages; all the parchment, stationery, and papery wings of a book, held close with the threads of binding. And when I flip through those pages, like a fan, that other world I cradle in my hands blows a kiss of sweet, enchanting breath. As the ages wear on, and the book I once held becomes old and well-worn, that breath grows more enticing. A hint of the story trailing close behind. What would become of this book as our own story breathes on? Might its characters read our story enclosed in a book similar to their own? Would our stories grow together, beyond the limits of the paper and ink that we came from? I believe these questions I wonder are my own favorite part of each book.