Chapter 1: Prologue
My na is Urano Motosu, and I am twenty-two years old. I love books. I really love books. I love books more than I love getting enough food.
I love how the printed words let reach out and touch another person’s ideas, their fantasies. My heart dances along the roads of thought laid down by the author, and I can’t help but smile. Absorbing the vast knowledge contained within just a single volu always leaves feeling like I’ve grown as a person. The whole wide world, which I have never seen with my own eyes, is at my fingertips, stacked neatly within the shelves of bookstores and libraries; isn’t it intoxicating? The fairy tales of foreign lands, the glimpses of life in distant tis and places, the reaches of every branch of history… when I absorb myself in a book, ti evaporates around .
Psychology, religion, history, geography, education, folklore, mathematics, physics, geology, chemistry, biology, art, fitness, language, fiction… All of humanity’s accumulated knowledge and insight has been tightly packed into these books, and I love each of them from the bottom of my heart.
Encyclopedias, stretching to fill the entire shelf; the collection of literature, with every volu in place; specialty magazines that look so simple on the cover, but hold such advanced contents; colorful periodicals full of photographs; countless novels, written with fastidious prose; light novels, lacking any depth but still selling fantastically; huge picture books, intended for children; manga, the comics that are the pride of Japan; comics and magazines published by and for fans… the rustling of each turning page is more intoxicating than the finest wine.
I also love the sll of the darkest corners of the library archives, where the dusty, even a little musty scent of ancient books fills the air. Just slowly breathing in the sll of old books sends waves of ecstasy crashing through my body. The sll of new books is equally irresistible! The sll of fresh ink on new paper tells that there is sothing new waiting to be discovered between those pages, and just thinking about it fills with excitent.
I want to live my entire life surrounded by books. If I can, I want to spend the rest of my life in a dark, but well-ventilated archive, where the books are shielded from the sun’s damaging rays. I’d spend every second I could reading, inseparable from my books, until my skin beca ghostly pale, my body weakened from lack of exercise, and I forgot so many als that I had to be pulled away by force. I want to die buried in books. I don’t want to quietly pass on in bed! Being smothered to death by a mountain of books would make so unbelievably happy.
…Well, I should use the past tense here.
Because, just a little while ago…! There was a big earthquake, and I was crushed to death underneath a pile of books! Maaan, really, out of all my wishes to grant, why this?
I really did want this, but I’m not really feeling like God did any favors here. I had just gotten my librarian certificate, and had sohow managed, in this age of unemploynt, to find a position at a university library!
God, please. If I can, I’d like to be reborn. There’s still so much more for to read. Even in my next life, I want to read.
So, make a librarian. Let spend each day surrounded by books. Of course, I know that working as a librarian won’t let read all the ti. It’s a job, and I’ll be busy, and I know that. But still, other jobs won’t let spend the entire day surrounded by books. Just being surrounded by books will make my happy. The intoxicating sll of ink and paper… who else could appreciate these feelings? Who else can feel this fluttering of my heart that occurs whenever I find myself looking back at all of this amassed history, these words written to preserve the insights of man, a uniquely human labor of the mind that is as old as writing itself?
If I can just read, that would be fine. Please, God. If you’ve heard my wish, please let be reborn. When I am, I can read again.
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