Naked walls, wooden floor, old mattress, cluttered desk, tall bookcase. These objects are the bare necessities of an eighteen-year-old college student still living at home. The bookcase holds roughly fifty-seven second-hand publications, constituting the luxuries of her existence. The days are filled with breathing, absorbing, and smiling. The nights are filled with dreaming, creating, and laughing. Sunlight often shines in as a warning of boundlessness. But the moonlight remains a luminous reminder of hope.

The eighteen-year-old goes by the nickname of Spooks. Her full-fledged addiction to reading started at the tender age of five and due to the lack of a twelve-step program, will not vanish until demise. Reading once surrendered the mind of this quiet and thoughtful little girl. Many years later, it continuous to embrace the intellect of the determined and experienced young woman. After years of merely thinking, she is now capable of filling the void with creation. Finally at the dawn of adulthood, Spooks can extrapolate her entity into the written word.

Walls remain naked and virgin, untouched by the youthful outlet of individuality in decor. The floor, marked by maple wood, remains cold and uninviting of bare feet at six thirty in the morning. The old mattress conceals the year’s strife for that ideal grade point average during many long wakeful nights. The cluttered desk acts a carved figure of individuality. Yet, only the bookcase, reveals the humanity of the room. It stands tall and omniscient. It holds the tools to construct and deconstruct any problem in the world. The bookcase holds books.

Spooks’ daily life is a consequence of a consequence of a consequence. Anything is a result of everything. The carnival of life is not interrupted by the occasional blunder of surrealism and dwellings are not erect on past mistakes. Spooks does not fall into the trap of delusion, thus, she is not an escapist reader.

The bookcase’s source of knowledge began with the power of one. The four hundred and fifty nine pages- tattered numerous times since publication- span influence on generations of minds with the first sentence. A present to a kindergartner, worth ninety-seven pennies, will remain priceless until someone once again assigns it value. The book, stationed at eye level on the bookshelf, views the world proudly. The Russian translation of Mark Twain’s artistic achievement of humor and wit seduces the reader with innocence and embarks on child-like idealism. In nineteen eighty eight, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer captured the imagination of Spooks and formed a life-long habit to reading.

The habitual diversion of the mind to a purely imaginative activity is a handicap of an individual. This handicap is superior to all. Escapism binds the mind until all thought processes are destroyed. And once thoughts are gone, the individual exists in a state of a chattel.

The eighteen-year-old college freshman at the University of Pittsburgh (also known as Spooks) is not a heroine nor a saint. She is a young woman whose life, like everyone else’s, is a result of a result of a result. Every choice has a price and every decision pays a cost. And once, thirteen years ago, a ragged object with torn pages filled her heart with laughter and her mind with wonder. With the first word, with the first page, and with the first chapter, an extraordinary became possible. The child’s mind opened to the reality of idealism and to the integrity of thought. From that point on there was no escapism, there was just a life-long struggle for insight.

This is my promise to the world. I take an oath to fight for individuality and for enlightenment. Mark Twain’s novel will remain stoic and unchanging, yet time and memory will forever alter its existence. And as far as addictions go, reading is one with the least hazardous side effects.