To a boy I once knew.

There once was a small boy, the only child of his parents, fat and ugly, his head immersed in a book at most times, he was seldom seen without one, books and scraps of paper, with words on them accompanied him everywhere he went, saw each morsel of food enter his mouth and possibly the culmination of that particular process the next morning. School ended never too soon for him, the window seat in the small library of his tiny hill-town beckoned, where he would be found, curtains drawn around him, engrossed in the adventures of the people from the pages of the book he was reading at the moment, their lives were so much more interesting than his own. The characters he loved were endless, each dear to him, be it the lying Pinocchio, the sisters Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth, Black-beauty, Lorna Doone, Huck-Finn and his friends or Oliver terrorised by Fagin. He followed the Famous five on all their adventures, pointed out clues to the Hardy brothers, all the while wishing that they would join forces with Nancy and her pals.

The lone book shop in his town was another haunt, the comic book heroes as much a part of his life as real-life people. Tintin and Snowy made him long for a dog of his own. Birthdays came and went, bringing more books with them, he still had the copy of 'What Katy did' that his father gave him on one such Birthday. He went on to Pygmalion and heavier tomes, the hunger driving him to learn Bengali, so that he could be a part of the world his mum spoke of, she too read, period.

His best memories were of those early childhood days, curled up in the Library window, he spent whole evenings there, reading until darkness made the words on the page blur or until his mum came looking for him, light in hand. Study hours were quickly dealt with, the unfinished stories beckoned. Happiness was always just the turn of a page away, demands were few and desires were limited to the contents of a 'to read' list.

I search for the boy still, at times, and wish he was here. I wish he was still here.