It's fascinating to notice the way that everything you've ever read sort of seeps into your skin.
Maybe a few days after you finish a book, the lingering stench of melancholy wears off, or your internal monologue returns to its regular cadence without influence – but the potted fern you have in the kitchen is no longer just dying and ornamental; it's a motif injected with meaning from a universe away. The panoramic view of a foreign country that flicks across your screen during a travel commercial whispers secrets. You grin conspiratorially at bead bracelets in a shop front and briefly you are a victorian child slinking through market stalls (and away from governesses). Citrus fruits reduce you to tears for vastly different reasons than before you picked up that little novel on vacation. An uncommon adjective in a news article triggers the memory of when you first horribly mispronounced read it aloud as a child.
You may not realise it at first, but you are cobbled together from the crumbs of literature that once meant something to you and I think that's a truly beautiful human experience. ..until I'm trying to write a short story for an English assignment.
