Prologue

The prologue to a book I'm currently writing.

PROLOGUE

 I once had a bookshelf in my room.
 It was full of children’s books and other books that were suitable and easy for me to read. My mother would pick a book from off the shelf every night after tucking me into bed and read to me.
 I loved reading. I didn’t have to be forced to pick up a book, it came naturally to me and my father and mother were more than happy to put money towards buying books for me to read. For a six year old, I sure had a lot of books. Some were shelved neatly and in alphabetical order by the author’s last name and others were just piled one on top of each other. I tried to keep them all on the bookshelf but eventually part of my bed became a bookshelf then the floor of my bedroom.
 It was like a maze of books and I couldn’t be more happier.
 

One evening, my mother had just tucked me into bed and for some reason I had come across the news on my TV when I was really in search for cartoons but my mother had taken the remote away from me and turned down the volume. She liked watching the news but only if it were background noise. I was more focused on the reporter who was front and center and behind him I saw flames and a large group of people huddled around and throwing objects into the orange glow. I had no clue what the reporter was saying since the TV was practically on mute but I was paying more attention to the news then I was to my mother who was reading me a children’s books about giving a mouse a cookie.
 That mouse would never get his cookie.
 My father stormed into my bedroom, his eyes wide with rage and once he saw what my mother had in his hands he went off.
 “Haven’t you been watching the news!?” He yelled and I shrank in my bed, pulling the blanket that covered me up a bit more. Scared of my father’s tone of voice and the way he looked. My mother noticed and was sure to rely that their child was frightened by the way he was acting about something none of knew anything about.
 “Turn the volume up!” My father demanded and my mother closed the book and set onto her lap and took the remote from her side and turned up the volume on my TV.
                           

                         ‘If you’re just tuning in you can see behind me that
                         several people have gathered in the center of downtown
                         to burn their books. The government has issued all
                         books to be banned, though, this excludes textbooks for

                         school.  If you own any books you are to get rid of them
                         in  any way you see fit. No novels of any sort are to be
                         printed from this point on.
                           This is Alex Hughes reporting live from Downtown.
                         Stay tuned.’

 I couldn’t understand just how people can turn on books so easily. Book, to me, were magical. I lived for a good book and I had friend who did too and I started to wonder just how he was taking this news.
 Upon hearing what the reporter had said, my mother threw the book in her lap into the air as if it were about to blow up. It landed open on the floor. I watched it all and I couldn’t breath as I watched the book hit the floor and not my father nor my mother cared if it was damaged. My father was already at work on grabbing all my other books from off the shelf and throwing them to the floor of my room. I protested by screaming and crying but my father just ignored me. My mother was more focused on the news at this point and I only heard snippets through my screaming and the sounds of the hardcovers hitting the ground.
                                
                                ‘The government has issued arrests for those who go
                                 against the law. No books are to be published from this
                                 point on. I repeat, no more books are to be published.
                                 Anyone seen with a novel or seen writing a novel will be
                                 sentenced either for death or a lifetime in prison.’

 Trash bags were being pulled out and my father was shoveling book pile after book pile into them and tying them up once all bags were full. I could only imagine the pain that the books were feeling. Being packed together so tightly like the, bending and pages ripping. I couldn’t look at my father anymore and soon he left my room, trash bags in hand. The front door opened then closed and after a few seconds I heard the car starting up and saw the headlights pass the window as my father drove away.
 No word of where he was going or what he had planned to do to all my books.
 It was about ten minutes later when my mother let out an audible gasp and I froze in my bed, heart beating out of my chest as I then began eyeing her for a moment to check to see if she was okay but her eyes were focused on the TV. My head turned slowly, imagining just what was on TV that shocked her and what I saw broke my heart into a million pieces. The tears were non-stop as I watched my father dump trash bag after trash bag of my books into the fire.
 He didn’t even look like my father anymore. There was rage in his eyes that I’ve never seen before and the glow of the fire lit up his body and made him look like the Devil himself coming from the pits of Hell.
 I was now scared of the man I once looked up to.

The next day, things have settled down. I stayed in my room and kept watching the news. Watching other countries burn their books and book stores being vandalized and trashed and cleaned out and burned to the ground. It felt like my world was ending. The one thing in the world that gave me happiness was being burned before my eyes. I know, I’m was only six at the time and how could I know just what is going on.
 Well, if something you loved very much was taken away and burned in front of you, would you be happy about? Would you be able to go on in life as if nothing were happening?
  No one in my family even cared to check in on me. My father was ex-military and would always follow what the government says no matter how crazy or weird it sounded and my mother, well, she just went along with whatever my father said or did so of course she was taking his side in all this and like my father, didn’t even care to check in on me the next day even though she knew just how much I adored books and reading.
 It was late in the evening and I was now curled up on my bed, eyes fixed on my TV as I watched the flames on the screen grow more with the amount of books that were being added. My mother knocked on the door of my bedroom before entering, my father behind her. My mother had a bowl of mac and cheese (my favorite) in on hand and she handed it to me. I gave in and took the bowl and started eating.
 “How are you feeling?” my mother asked as she sat herself in the same chair as the other night. I was silent as I ate my mac and cheese, “do you want us to get you anything?” she asked and I perked up at that.
 “A book,” I said which only resulted in my father to laugh.
 “Those are illegal. You clearly would know since you have been watching the news all day.” My father said with a harsh tone, “and have you been crying?” He questioned upon seeing my tear stained cheeks, ”it’s just books,” he laughed, “don’t be a p***y, son. We’re men and men don’t cry.”
 If being a man meant being ignorant and hurting the people closest to me then no thank you. I was fine with showing my emotions. I was fine with actually loving something, loving mere pages that brought me to new worlds and had me meeting strange characters because those pages were my life and now I’m watching my life being burned.
 I could never have a full conversation with my father after the events that took place though, it didn’t seem to bother him all that much. Sure we ate dinner together and watched a movie here and there but we were from two different worlds that just didn’t understand each other. He would never look at me like I was his son and I would never again look at him like he was my father and when the protests started, people trying to get books back to what they once were, my father just laughed and was always against them even joined a group that would every once in a while get violent towards the protesters.
 Maybe I was right. Maybe that night when when my father burnt me books, the Devil really did emerge from the pits of Hell.
 My bookshelf was taken out of my room and now there was an empty space. I had to spend my days playing with Legos or drawing and when it came time to go back to school I saw that the school’s library had been ransacked. All that was left was textbooks.
 No one dared to go against the law and no new books were published and released (Kindles and other ereaders were even destroyed)  but I vowed that one day I would publish a novel, no matter the consequences.