#abstractanchor

On particularly bad days, I often find myself secluded and quiet, browsing through fiction.  It draws me in and captures every inch of my attention.  There's just something about the fiction that keeps me coming back. And that's just the thing -- fiction.  I realize now that I come back seeking something that is far more different than my own life.  Something far better. I grow up with these characters; I experience love; I experience loss; I am there for each moment of their development, and I develop a bond with these 26 recurring letters.  It's inexplicable -- the bond I form with these letters.  Some H's or some E's somehow make me laugh; cry; scream; or flip the pages.

These pages provide an escape.  When my own life seems too awful, rushed, empty, or hectic, I can always turn to the 26 letters that create my alternate identities. I am Harry Potter; I am Tintin; I am Katniss; I am Emma; I am Leopold; I am everyone that I am not.  The arrangement of these 26 letters transforms me -- reawakens me.  I am none of these things, but I am all of them.