Time does fly by as you are to enter High School. Fourteen years... darn it. According to the Library reading guidelines you are mature enough to handle the material I'm about to put in your hands. I don't know, perhaps kids are more open to the world these days, but I found it really funny, as I read this Graphic Novel for the very first time in my twenties and it managed to screw my mind... but a promise is a promise.
I remember you as a four year old skulking into my library, that sacred little space comprised of two giant bookshelves and trying to reach with chubby little fingers an arrangement of books that looked colorful, inviting and fun, all of which were strictly forbidden. It frustrated you heavily, and though I tried to distract you with Wolves in the Walls and the outrageous idea of trading your Daddy for two Goldfish (quite a good bargain, I might add) I promised you then, that in time, my books would be yours.
I've seen you grow since then and although when you were smaller, you rabid attempts at recitations of The Raven and The Tyger made me chuckle and joke that you were made after my own image, I knew that in fact you'll grow up to be a completely different being. You have the drive of someone who wants to drink life in cup fulls, the mindset of a conqueror and the build of an athlete. Most people would be scared of these departures in character, I'm not. It is my faith that I'm granted a gift, the opportunity to see you reach places I never dreamed of.
But let's go back to the things we have in common: we both despise the mundane, the black and white outlook on life dictated by people who are too afraid to take a chance. We both like the idea of a world beyond our own where we can hide once in a while. Though I meditate in dreams and you seem to want to tear at the fabric of it all just to find what makes them tick, we both believe in that kind of magic.
With no further a do I give you a book that I knew will be yours since the day you were born. It is well preserved and taken care of and even though I had the chance to buy it brand new, I rather give you this one. It has character, little battle scars, it's been places you haven't been yet, touched by other people. It has left a palpable imprint is those who read it, and now it is yours.
Its is a story, not of a man, but of a being that is older than gods, from whose hands drip the sands that forge the dreams of mankind. You will not meet him at the top of his game though, in fact he is beaten, reduced to nothing, a prisoner fueled by revenge. But don't worry, as in any good story, nothing ever stays unmoving. Eventually you'll catch with what is going on... You know most men and women in comic books go from being regular Joes to having god like superpowers. This one works backwards and that makes it unique, is a hard, long journey towards being human.
I'll leave you now, to the dreams of gods and men and the stuff that lives on the edge of nightmares
Love, L.
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