Journey of a story

By Divya 

The legs of an immortal spider skip over the canvas, each of its footsteps etching irreversible spikes of inky black on the blankness. Systematically, the spider moves all the way across the canvas in uniform, straight rows. Every time it reaches the end of its web, it springs back to the other edge of the canvas, starting anew its trek across the vast expanse of empty space.

Such is the journey; the setting being the pages of a book.

Simple blots of ink on a piece or perhaps pieces of paper, yet the thought put into each and every word - and the meaning of the passage as a whole - is profound. An author's work is irrefutably their own; the words that form the river that sweeps the reader along are crafted entirely by their own hands and wit. A book is a world within a world, the only boundaries of a world that knows almost no limits - at least until the book is closed and kept aside.

The journey does not end here, however! Stories that are stored in books come alive in a reader's mind, and continues on in their dreams long after the book has been closed. A book is full of magic, an age-old magic, a magic that stimulates the brain, that niggles at the consciousness, that presses on the hopes and fears of the reader. In a creative, imaginative person, this small idea could grow into an entirely new idea, and another story is born - a story from a story.

Hence, the cycle repeats, one story after another; the spider's journey never ends...