[distraction]

i open the book and, turning the pages, allow the letters—now senseless squiggles, designs—swallow me whole, offering a comforting distraction without equal. the lines turn to swirls, and vice versa. i turn off my mind and turn page after page, forgetting this world, exiting this existence, without fully entering the next. i neither comprehend nor attempt to understand the ¿letters? before me, forming words before me, turning to sentences, turning to paragraphs, turning to page turned after page turned after page turned...

and when the pages end, the distraction ends, and the experience gives way to reality, and the distraction gives way to...