I finished the book.

I can prove it. There is a last page. I have been there. More than once. I turned it. Closed the cover. Finished.

Except the book disagrees.

I open it again and find the same words exactly where I left them. But I am not exactly where they left me. That changes things.

Perhaps a book can remain still while its reader returns changed.

An old tree does this. Stand before it in winter and you see its bones. Return in spring and you see blossoms. Summer gives you shade. Autumn gives you color.

Four trees? No. One tree. Four ways of seeing it.

This book is like that. I reach the last page again. But now I know better.

A last page is only the end of the pages. It is not necessarily the end of the story.