This Treasure I Have Found

She sat at her desk, her book open and her music turned to a low murmur. The lights blazed because she always forgot to turn them off, and a glass of fruit juice lay, also forgotten, sweating by her elbow. She was completely engrossed, far enough into the book that, if anyone were listening, they might hear her breath catch as she forgot to breath. Nothing meant more to her at that moment. Behind her, on the dresser, on the night-table, on her pillow, on the desk over her head, in a pile on the floor, lay her true loves. Her books, the constant in her life. That ever-changing, never-changing world of truths and lies, of hope and despair, of fact and fiction, myth and legend that she could escape into whenever the world became too much or not enough to handle. When boredom set in, she read. When truly happy, she read. When she was sad enough to cry, she made sure she cried over her books.