by Steven Cuffari
1
This is not a journal, although it was intended to be. I received it almost a year ago. Please forgive me for the somewhat meandering nature of what I am about to write. I do not know my audience, and I do not know if you are it. I do not know if you will be able to understand the story I am about to tell.
This false journal, this well-intentioned gift has actually destroyed me. Rather, it has destroyed my soul. Up until I received this… book, I don’t think I ever believed in the human soul. Now, I am sure of it. My soul has traversed a large expanse of suffering, joy, confusion, dementia, amnesia, euphoria, exaltation and near-annihilation. Only more awaits. I feel as though it will never end. My physical body is young, almost in a constant state of sleep. But it too has its share of scars, lesions and bruises. It too has been battered and broken.
But nothing compares to the hellish infinity that this journal has brought me since it landed in my lap.
2
It was December 19th, my birthday. I was in New York, and it was raining. Cold. My sister invited me to her place in the East Village, and we decided to get Indian food. She grabbed her bag and finished her drink, dragging me behind her.
She was only a year younger than me but seemed infinitely younger in spirit. I had always been the serious one. Somehow, her youthfulness avoided naivety. She was practical in her spontaneity, sophisticated. But she was neither precocious nor a prodigy. She was a beauty inside and out.
When she gave me the small box from her bag, I thought it was a joke. It was wrapped in newspaper and tied with a red shoelace in a bow. I remember telling her she was crazy, that she knew I didn’t want gifts. I never did. When I used to get gifts as a child, I would throw them away if I didn’t like them. I wish I had done so with this journal. So far, it has brought me nothing but pain. Pain that could not be erased by a thousand joys. No matter how much beauty this book allows me, it will never be able to revive the mangled corpse of my sister. Nor will it ever be able to erase my memory of it.
3
The journal had a hold on me the second I unwrapped it, though I didn’t really know it then. From that moment on, I would rub my fingers along its spine and caress its face. I barely noticed myself doing it because it was just a leather-bound book. It had no ornate design, no etching, no relief. Nothing.
Inside, its pages were blank and off-white, almost beige. I preferred white with lines.
I remember thanking her and kissing her cheek with a hug. I put it in my bag, and we continued talking. The waiter brought us our drinks and we cheersed to my birthday.
“And to the best sister I could ask for,” or something similar, I said.
Everything got foggy at that moment. It was a light fog in the back of my mind, but a fog nonetheless. It slowly invaded my personality, my life, my soul. And it has only gotten bigger. I once thought it would overtake me at some point, but it hasn’t yet. Whether this book is good or evil, I cannot say. I am not sure what those things are at this point. I am not sure I ever knew. But if I had to classify it, I would say it was Demon. Demon with a capital D, because that would be its name. It is certainly not inanimate. I feel it inside of me. It is not merely a book. As a matter of fact, I would say it’s not a book at all. What it wants, let alone what it wants from me, I have forever been at a loss to say. The one thing I am certain of when it comes to this unknowably forsaken tome is that it has destroyed my life and everything I hold dear.
4
To be continued…
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