Breathless

I’ve been thinking about the rights of the reader recently, and I think I have found another to add to that list.

I think I would like the right to be caught, as I was this lunchtime, at the final page turn and feeling your emotions rise at what you’ve just experienced. To look up, and around, and to realise that – this is for you. It is all for you. This moment where you are the only person in the world to be feeling like this, right like this, right now. The right to be breathless. To be emotional, burning, hot, cold – feverish, almost – locked in the wonder of what has just happened to you.

I would like to be blind-struck by a book, to be taken unawares, to be caught with surprise at what comes and to be heartbroken when it does. To hold a book and be stunned, dumbstruck at what has just happened, and the fact that nobody labelled this book as heart-shatterer, life-wrecker, magic-maker.

I would like to be taken unawares, to be startled and shocked and to be amazed and surprised, and to be humbled and jealous all in one thick hot tempestuous stomach churning moment.

I would like to be breathless.

(And I am, I am, I am).