Eating books didn't seem like such a good idea, in the cold light of day. Confronted with Coraline where Raisin Bran should be, I nearly changed my mind. It didn't look very appetizing. In fact, it looked pretty stupid. The whole idea was starting to look pretty stupid. If it hadn't been for last night's blog post, declaring my intentions to the world, I'd probably have given up right then and there.
As it was, I sat there for a long time, staring at my plate. The girl on the book cover stared back. An endorsement by Philip Pullman exhorted me to "rise to my feet and applaud," so I did. Then, I sat down, tore off a corner from the first page, and began to eat.
I chose Coraline as my first meal because it was lighter than a novel, but more substantial than a short story. The pages were flimsy, and felt like they'd melt in my mouth. The cover looked slightly more daunting, with a thin layer of something shiny on it, and a glue-like substance along the binding, but not insurmountable. Not inedible. It would give me a taste of things to come without sending my system into shock.
I ate slowly. The paper had a cellary flavor to it. It reminded me of dust and spiders. Dust and spiders...like in the basement, where I kept most of my books last winter, while the downstairs was being remodeled. I sat and chewed, and tore, and chewed, trying to get used to the taste. But it didn't get any better. If anything, it got stronger, compounding with every bite. By the fifth page, it had become unbearable. I could feel it in my nose, as well as my mouth. After that, I started shredding the pages into milk, and eating them like cereal. That helped somewhat.
Thirty pages in, I realized I wouldn't be able to eat the whole book at a sitting. The paper had clumped up in my stomach, and it wasn't going anywhere fast. I waited a few minutes, to see if things would start moving again, but they didn't. It was time for work, anyway. I put the rest of the book in my briefcase and left the table.
I started feeling queasy on my way to the office. My stomach had begun to slosh and churn, and I could taste acid indigestion in my throat. I stopped at the Circle K for some Pepto-Bismol. It's important that I digest Gaiman's words fully, no regurgitation. I swallowed two big gulps of the pink stuff and breathed deeply till the pukey feeling passed.
By the time my coffee break rolled around, I felt almost okay again. I sat in the men's room and dry-swallowed another three pages. My stomach tightened up at first, then went loose and baggy. I could feel the words milling around in there, forming sticky clumps. I think I'm going to need something stronger than Pepto, if I'm going to maintain this diet for any length of time.
At lunchtime, I needed to eat at least thirty more pages, if I wanted to get Coraline out of the way by sundown. My appetite, however, refused to co-operate. The minute I smelled the paper, my stomach began to revolt. Wolfing down entire chapters was out of the question, at least for the time being. Discouraged, I nibbled another page between sips of tomato juice.
Something will need to be done about that smell, that taste. After only one full paper meal, my stomach has learned to reject it on principle. As long as I can smell the basement, I'll be losing these battles before they even begin. I have to fool my belly into thinking it's getting something other than paper pulp for dinner. If I pour plum sauce over the next few chapters, maybe it'll think we're having Chinese.
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