Some thousand years hence I lay with a sleeping lover craddled in one arm. In another hand, I hold a book that I read with only passing interest, awaiting the embrace of sleep myself. How I came across the book, or what indeed the name of dark haired beauty in my arms was, I cannot say: my dreams of things that will come to pass show me only what my eyes will see.
I have not dreamt an idle fantasy in many years: I knew that the book I read was written by a man, though long dead by the time I read his book (yet still he will not be born for some three hundred and seven years after my current life ends), who holds vital insight to the Otherplace.
O, I see:
Entitled: A final note in passing, friend
Arman's Supplementay
Kind Friend, Who has Shown a Special Interest in the Prehistory of our Small World, please Take Care to Note that Many of the following pages are Speculation. They contain as much history as the personal details of my life, as much fact as probable fiction.
I trust the curious man or educated woman, in being familiar with my past works, will have noted the contents of my previous works are meticulous in regards to accuracy - I spared no effort or expense in ensuring absolute accuracy. It was of the utmost importance to myself (and my patrons) that I utter no false fact, put to pen no idle fancy, but that which is provably true.
In later years I have perhaps some Regret that I did not allow or permit the speculative to enter into consideration. Long and dry lists of facts do not capture the imagination. Nevertheless I thought it prudent to work as I had, sifting through past records and discarding information not deemed of particular value. I wonder if I could have done more to impress upon youth the vital importance of History.
This regret however has come to be overshadowed by the pending, sweet & yet bleak melancholy of my slow decline into the night. I am hardly likely to see another summer. I feel the grip of ancient myth and legend on my life - legends that I so often contributed to stamping out in my quest for truth - tugging at me from the grave. During my tenure at the Osseldor University, I supervised the torching of the Special Reserve tomes. Those were devilish times, and I revelled in a way I have not before or since all those pretentious, juvenille and false texts met their end.
I know I have always been bothered by untruths, and fictious, falsified accounts of the world by second rate imposters. I recollect the day we caught Thompson making fake animals out of tar, feathers and some poor foxes so that he could have another "Discovery" to titillate the world with. I felt something close to perfect glee - but it seems unlike me to have gone out of my way to destroy so many of those otherwise harmless books. At the very least, we could have used them as examples to earnest students of how individuals and nations construct false science and historical accounts for personal gain. But those...
My eyelids grew heavy, and the enchanting skin of my then-lover proved a lure to strong to read more. The book dropped from my fingers, falling gently to the floor. Some lives, I do not know who I am, nor do I remember the dark things in the world. In that life, love weighs most heavily on my mind. Yet I know those books, I know what horrible secret things he burned, I would know more - I must know more: I yelled, but I cannot hear, and so I watched myself fall into slumber.
