Prologue

The dusty sunlight of the late afternoon filtered through some tall windows in a classroom in a former school that now serves as a community center for an aging population. Liao leaned back in a plastic chair, balancing it on two legs as he nudged a thick manuscript sitting in the center of an old formica lectern. Patiently, he held the book in this hands, noticing how some dust swirled as moving it.

"So, what’s this book all about?" Liao asked, his voice echoing slightly in the cavernous, lecture hall that now held only four friends.

Tim didn't look up immediately. He was scrolling through his cell phone with an unreadable expression. "Education," he finally replied flatly.

Melissa groaned theatrically, her forehead thudding against the table with a dull thump. "Ugh. Now that sounds boring," she moaned. "It’s like reading a manual on how to watch paint dry."

"C'mon now!" Tim snapped his cellphone back into his pocket, his eyes suddenly sparking with an intense, restless energy. "Nothing is dull if you shift your perspective. Have you noticed how quickly you slap labels on things? 'Boring,' 'interesting'— too often you’ve made up your mind before you’ve even experienced them. Why? Boredom is merely the shadow cast by the inattentive."

Satoru, who had been leaning against the chalkboard with his arms crossed, tilted his head. He looked at the book as if it were an intriguing relic from another time.

"Fair enough," he conceded, his voice low and gravelly. "But I'm curious why a dude would spend time writing this sort of stuff. Hasn't enough been said about education already? We’ve got several thousand years of pedagogy behind us. Why add another drop to the ocean?"

Liao slammed his chair slam back down onto all four legs, a resolute look on his face. "I suspect most books aren't written for us," he mused, tracing the spine of the book. "I think they’re mainly for the authors. More often than not, readers often play the role of incidental bystanders to their internal monologues."

Tim nodded slowly, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Exactly. In the process of word-spinning, we aren't just making sentences. Gradually, through the labor of the pen, we redefine ourselves. Books are cocoons and wombs; through writing authors try to transform and emerge in new ways."

Melissa lifted her head, her skepticism softened by a glimmer of genuine intrigue. "Okay. Enough philosophy. Let’s take a peek inside the belly of this beast."

Liao reached out, his hand hovering over the first page. He suddenly slumped his shoulders, feigning a look of overwhelming, bone-deep fatigue. "Argh," he grunted, a playful glint in his eyes. "The weight on inertia is one me, but I can manage to turn one single page."