Daily Flash Fiction

I lay upon the lectern, tightly closed, staring up at the man who dares to attempt to unravel my secrets.

I lie in a chamber with a time-locked door. The door will lock itself from the outside after a delay, giving those that enter my chambers only a half hour in which to read me – certainly not enough to devour all of my contents. I am chained to prevent removal, and excess noise or tugging on the chain will wake the serpent. This has happened twice since my incarceration, and the slow numbing venom-death of the invader always fills me with a kind of pleasure.

The Bibliomancers have long since come and gone. They seek prophecy by the simplest means, by raising my leaves and allowing me to fall open where I desire. this is foolish, and each one of them has died a painful death. There were those who doubted the prophecy while others said it was only too true – for every one of those men who attempted it met an untimely end.

A few come sometimes, brave or reckless souls who doubt my power. Most of those I slay for the insult of having underestimated my power so greatly, but some come with a sense of humility and these I merely destroy, leaving them naked and alone, free of their wealth and respective status. These events are so easy to manipulate.

But this one is different. When he opens me it is with a respect, and yet a sense of firmness. He does not appear to be terrified of me, and yet he treats me with a sense of respect.

My prophecies shift and change as he turns the pages as I try to find something that will catch his eye, stop him in his tracks. I examine his personhood and detect a sense of perfume. And then I know it, and he stops.

He is in love, I can see it and smell it, and though there are those who believe love to be a strength, I know it for the weakness that it is. the fools that come to my lectern come with a purpose, but they never achieve what they mean to – every time I stop them with a threat or a cajole.

But then he shakes his head and carries on before he starts to read.

Angered, I shift my prophecies again, with word of great power, immense honour, an evil darkness that threatens to break loose deep beneath the sea, a source of limitless food to stave off famine, a way to bring about an end to war. Still he thumbs on. I try cures to disease, mind-reading, psychokinesis, magical techniques that are incredibly powerful without the cost of memory. Still he goes on. He is coming close to the end, and I try one last effort to snare him.

On the Creation of Prophecy.

This stops him, this is the information he seeks. Deep within my pages – or is it my spine? – my heart leaps with a kind of hope, and an idea. He reads my words, then reads them again, and then turns to leave. The door slams and the serpent is roused.

“And what fate have you prepared for this one, my little friend?” the serpent whispers to my leaves.

“A truly painful one. The man is in love, and those are my favourites.” I answer, desperate that my betrayal should not show. For the lord that created both myself and the serpent understands not the desire for procreation that exists in all living things, and though I am some thin mockery of life those same drives exist within me. Somewhere, soon, I hope there will be many more books just like me.