watching books

i'm devouring books again. the last time i did that was six years ago when i swiftly polished off 50 books within one year. or was it 25? that's an average of 2-4 books a month. i remember because i had a loyalty card from Kinokuniya and i proudly, angrily and determinedly collected all 50 stamps. or was it 25?

that took less than, but almost, a year, exactly.

i remember because i was in depression for that long.

but i lost myself in the world of my books the moment i turned a page. i read classics, novels, thrillers, coming-of-age plots. slowly, i ventured to plots that touched on love again. i wept over the books and i laughed over them. literally.

i breathed the life created in those tales and i lived the characters' lives. the books saved mine. it was my only means of escape from my deep wounds that i carried around and refused to let go of then. they were the only reprieve i had. it was only in the books that i was able to leave my fucking world behind to ones that don't, in any way, tear at me from inside out.

books have always had that effect on me. images spring to my mind's eye, whole landscapes are formed right before me. characters move and go about their activities and i, the voyeur, sometimes participate in their activities and sometimes stand right beside them, watching quietly, unnoticed. it's like there's a screen right between my eyes and the page, where the words merge to create whole images and scenes to be played on the movie screen of my vision.

do i watch or do i read? sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference.