After a century of reading, even the very spirit shall stink. Me, a reading idler, sitting and scratching meaning out of these well-worn words. Festering in my own cloister, that I might imitate the man whose madness spoke of a spirit that seemed to step between mountains. I see this same man’s eyes staring at me from the darkness, sat at the end of my bed - a night terror. Eyes like red guttering candles. That he might haunt me, a sickly spirit, he who despised the despisers of life! Where is the man who contrived the flame from which the phantom’s fled? Who is this ghoul, whose soul is so benighted? I must feel guilt as I look at upon his works with corpselike hands, and see that he reflects only what I give him. So for me, this last man, he must appear as the soul embodying poverty, and pollution and wretched self-complacency.

I sit up from my sweat-stained sheets, resolute to confront this phantom. “What means this? That you might haunt me, the man of changing spirits? What change brought this? That you might despise those that invented heavenly paths and yet find yourself here? You who spoke of the despisers of life, is it now that you despise death?”

The benighted soul spoke with a hollow spirit, for he had breathed all of his into his works. And so, now in death his voice was a scratching pen, and a dry parchment.

“You speak to me in my own fashion, and it is well you do so. For my spirit is bound by these words and sustained by them. Yet, as time has passed these words have spread, and so has my spirit, stretched taut across a million pages. So it is you see me now, a jacko-lantern, a wanderer’s shadow.”

At this the shade seemed to grow, an ink stain bleeding wide across the walls, the spirit’s eyes dimming into pinpricks of light. I turned the pages of his book and read, “Why did the ghost cry: ‘It is time! It is the highest time!’”. The darkness receded and the spirit sat forward into itself, eyes kindling. “It is required of every man” the ghost said, “that they that despised the next life should walk abroad amongst his fellow men in death, and travel as far and wide as his words are read; to witness the paltry life he knew in the knowledge of that he knew not, and now shall never know.” At this his skin seemed to sallow, his skin tautening over his sharp bony features.

“Why do you trouble me with this, spirit? what need have you of one reading idler?”. The ghost laughed, and its laughter was rustling pages. “You might pity me”, it said, ” but it would be misplaced. If you could but see your fate as I see it clearly now!”. “What do you mean?”, I asked, “Speak plainly!”. “You write idle words, empty vessels, and cast them out into the world, with overweening pride. Likewise, in the hereafter, you will be cast out into the world, doomed to walk the earth as I. A solitary spirit without even a word whispered in your name”. At this, he stood, and, with a noise like a great book slamming shut, the lights of his eyes went out, and he disappeared with the darkness that came after.

I sat in that darkness for a long time afterwards. Me, the reading idler, rereading these words I have written. Idle words, without meaning or merit, and signifying nothing.