I think we all remember reading our first novel. Be it My Pet Goat or the Count of Monte Cristo. With every page
immersing us ever deeper into the fictional world where our imagination is the
only master, allowing us to cater to a catwalk of images; events, characters and locations ceaselessly emerging from the fog. Inevitably ruining any other adaptation of this universe that has become our own. But that's another story
entirely.
Who hasn't, at one point or another, wished to be one
of these treasured heroes of ink and quill. Isn't it precisely this
identification that incites our interest with the many protagonists with which
we find ourselves confronted? We avidly devour their description, searching disparagingly
for any shared or similar traits. All the while wondering what choice of prose the author would have made to describe you, had the two of you met.
Would you be his principal or merely a secondary
character in his tale of want and woe? Would you have been his muse? What
aspects would shape the silhouette, rendering this inken entity you? Would it
be the nobility of your features, an air of aloof mystery, or the glint of deeply seated loathing in your gaze?
It comes down in a way to the wishful fancy of
mastering telepathy, inherent to the omniscient being, enabling you to harness the opinion and judgment of others. Or could it be considerably more primal than all that? Could it not be our basic impulse to leave something behind, to grasp at immortality? Some have children; others write books, paint
masterpieces or sing themselves into timelessness through song.
As the saying goes "When a writer falls in love
with you, you become immortal"