A Book He is Reading

He is telling me about a book he is reading. He holds this book as you would a Bible, though it's just a regular book, and isn't holy in any way. It is about the same thickness as a Bible so he must hold it like a Bible, in that it weighs about what a Bible does, and needs to be held like something that weighs like a Bible. He also reads only small portions at a time, he tells me, though the book is very large, because he is a little afraid of the book as a whole, the way you might be afraid of a book that is reported holy. He also reads only a little at a time because he loves the book so much, though it's just a book, that he is afraid to exhaust it, like an over-watched movie, he says. Though he admits that it would take a long time to watch this whole movie.

This is a little how people read the Bible, though mostly people only read a little of the Bible because they are daunted by its breadth. He may be daunted by its breadth, but he also seems to be inspired by it, the way people may be inspired by the Bible. He shows me the way he reads it, just a little of it, every night before he goes to sleep. He stands in the middle of the room, and holds it out in front of him, open in his cupped hands. He stands very straight. He reads the little bit aloud to me, after telling me that he always reads it aloud, to the cats, or to himself, but now to me. His voice as he reads has a kind of reverence, though it is not too soft, the way public prayer can be. It is, if anything, loud for a reading just to himself, or to himself and his cats, or to me. His diction is careful, devotional. It's obvious that he relishes what he is reading aloud. I am not sure whether this is a special enactment for me of what he will do again later, in earnest, for himself, or if he is allowing me to watch him in his single, small reading for the night of the book he loves.