I am made of literature and cannot be anything else.539
Forgive me everything. I have lied to you…or at least, I have not told you the whole truth. I couldn’t.540 Not when I needed you to play your part.541 Daniel told me this book was dangerous, and he was right. After I completed my work on the manuscript, I came to realise that all of its narratives, all of its the stories and layers, Daniel’s, Ezra’s, mine,542 yours, were one and the same, in the end.
You may come to see this book as many things; a biography, a detective novel, a love letter, a true story, a work of fiction, a forsaken text, an encyclopaedic narrative, or something else entirely. It is all of these things and more. At the very end, this was Daniel’s final gift to us; the freedom to interpret these pages as we choose.
I suspect you will see my work on this manuscript as a betrayal, restoring what Daniel tried to burn, to destroy…but I have my reasons. You would understand this if I told you my name, but I will not give you the answers you seek. I cannot. All I will say is, I have saved these pages from the ashes for a purpose. The rest is up to you.
Yes, I have lied, but if I had told you the truth from the beginning, you might not have continued to read, and I couldn’t risk that. I needed to pass this book on. I had no choice. Now that you have read this book, reality might not seem quite the same for you. I’m not saying you’ll hear a voice inside your head quietly directing you, or that you’ll begin to lose time, or that one day you’ll look at your own face in the mirror with suspicion, as the walls crumble around you like ash, and the void behind everything reveals itself. I can’t say with any certainty, because the book is different for everyone; that is part of its power. But what I do know is this; the world will no longer feel as real as it once did…or as safe.
I did try to warn you. There is nothing more dangerous than the truth.
And these pages, this book…
…the truth it contains…
…it is no longer Ezra’s or Daniel’s…
…or mine.
It belongs to you.
Anonymous
THE END
Notes
539. Franz Kafka, writer (1883 – 1924)
540. My own words unintentionally echo those of Kafka in his 1922 short story, The Hunger Artist.
541. “I must know the whole story, but once I have it I pass it on to readers like a gift from the devil.” – Carlos Fuentes.
542. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” – The Wizard of Oz (1939)