The power of a story lies in its end, in the final words that preserve meaning in a glass jar to serve up on toast at the start of the next. As the last dribble of ink bleeds through these pages I am reminded of the quiet of the middle - what does it speak of middles when the fondness of memory lies in beginnings, nostalgia in the gentle flow of tides that wash away the scenes, the plot, the characters?
Stories are defined by a series of lasts. The last line, the last page, the last chapter; the last kiss; and so it is in all things that bear the resemblance of importance. As endings approach, and final words parade their magic for all about to hear, middles take on new shades of grey, defined, of course, by the colour of the page. In these times the stories become a series of maps to mark the places we've been; flags in the spaces we cling to when the winds of change flap the pages to the start of a new story.
Real stories, as legends tell, read only from their middles. It is said that he who begins where he finds no beginning, and ends where no end begins, will fall through the fabric of time, ink in his veins. In the fold of the spine, in the pages torn and yellowed, his old leather hands find wisdom stitched to the seams.
