Photo by Danika Perkinson on Unsplash
Mark Deetz found himself in the middle of his favorite book. Literally. Flat as a pancake, he lay between pages 246 and 247. He knew this because his head was pressed between the two numbers, his body inverted, legs askew.
“Help,” he squeaked.
Unable to curl his fingers or bend at the waist, he wriggled his arms and legs in a two-dimensional swimming motion until his position aligned with the words. A faint odor of turpentine emanated from the binding, but otherwise, the sheets felt soft and smooth on his skin. He read the print on the page to his left.
Logorrhea. noun : from Ancient Greek. a communication disorder characterized by rapid, uncontrollable, and incoherent speech
Mark remembered reading a delightful essay that accused a radical politician of having this disorder. He prided himself on a strong vocabulary but had never encountered this word before. His last memory was rising from the reading chair in his library, strutting to the open dictionary, and flipping to the correct page.
He did not recall shrinking to the size of a spider, crawling into his beloved dictionary, or closing the cover. He must be dreaming.
“Wake up!” he commanded, sliding his thin head left and right in a shaking motion. The effort failed. He remained trapped, pressed like a flower between the leaves.
He read the next entry at a level below his chin.
Logos. noun: the divine wisdom manifest in the creation of the world
“Help,” he screamed, ignoring how air could have come from a pair of flat lungs.
“Mark?”
Ruth, Mark’s wife, had entered the room with a plate of scrambled eggs and a toasted bagel. Despite his wife’s incessant objections, he often nodded off in the chair beneath his reading light, the crooked carcass of a dropped book on the floor beside him.
Mark’s mouth watered at the smell of breakfast, saliva oozing from his mouth, wetting the page.
“I’m in here,” Mark shouted. He had no expectation Ruth would serve him breakfast in his current condition, but at the very least, she could extricate him and hopefully reinflate him to his original state. Then he could eat.
“In where?” Ruth’s voice had risen an octave.
“Here. In the dictionary.” Mark heard the plate clatter on the marble-topped side table.
“In … the … what?” Ruth stammered.
“Yes, dictionary. Pay attention.” Mark waited for the cover to fly open and Ruth to riffle to his location. “Page 246,” he said to speed the search.
Thirty years ago, Mark had visited an antiques dealer and acquired this grand old tome, a 1916 first edition published by the G & C Merriam Co. He instantly fell in love with its leather casing and unusual construction. A binding flap closed over the gilded pages with a combination lock as if to preserve the divine wisdom manifest in the creation of the world. Soon after, he purchased a Victorian bookstand on which he displayed his prize. He situated the mahogany shrine in the room’s center and finished the exhibit with a vintage green-shade banker’s light.
“Ruth?” Mark called. “Are you still there?”
“How can you be inside—”
“I haven’t a clue, dear, but get me out. Now.”
“And how do you propose I do that?” Ruth said in a singsong voice.
“Are you mad? Open the book to page 246.”
“I can’t.”
Mark sighed. “Yes, you can. Lift the cover. It’s not exactly heavy.”
After a short pause, Mark heard Ruth spin on a heel and shuffle toward the kitchen mumbling something about a spot of tea. Her footfalls stopped and she huffed. “The flap, Mark. It’s locked.”
“Well come back here and unlock it. For God’s sake, woman, are you unable to think without me?”
Ruth turned toward the dictionary and spoke slowly. “I think I need the combination.”
“Why can’t you …? Oh … The combination. I’ve … never locked it before.
Mark felt Ruth’s sneer burn through the pages.
“What’s on the flap? Any clues?” Mark asked.
“A circle with writing.”
“Aha. That’s an embossed printer’s seal.” Along with his impressive command of vocabulary, Mark considered himself an expert in antique books, bookbinding, and publishing. “Look for numbers, like a date.”
“Yes. 1916.”
“Well, try that. Quickly. I’m getting flatter.”
“Nope. Won’t work,” she said. “We need six numbers. Oh, and your breakfast is going cold. I’ll eat it.”
Mark seethed. Unable to make a fist to shake at his wife, he looked for something hard to bang his head against. Finding nothing but linen stitches and a soft mesh liner, he groaned, “Aaargh.”
As Ruth ate his breakfast, Mark swam to the spine and curled around the ends of the sheets. He slipped between pages 112 and 113, looking for a clue to the combination.
Escape. verb : to get away : to avoid a threatening evil
No numbers. He swam to another page.
Combination. noun : an ordered sequence of letters or numbers used as a key to setting a lock
Still no numbers.
One could hope the combination would be cleverly secreted for occasions like this – such as scribbled on scrap paper peeking out from under the book jacket. Mark swam to the front and scoured the jacket, liner, and endpaper. Nothing.
“Ruth?”
“Yegs?” she mumbled through a mouthful of bagel.
“The only numbers I’ve seen so far are page numbers. Try the first two page numbers I saw: 2 4 6 and 2 4 7”
The fork clattered on the plate. Mark held his breath as he listened to the tickety-tick of the combination wheels turning. The dictionary shook like a small earthquake.
“Nobpe,” Ruth muttered. “Shtill lomcked.”
“Damn,” Mark swore through his gritted teeth as he swam to another page.
Number. noun: a unit belonging to an abstract mathematical system and subject to specified laws of succession, addition, and multiplication
“No numbers in number,” he said. “Such an exquisite irony.”
On he went.
Embound. verb : to bound or enclose
“I’m embounded, Ruth. I’ve learned a new word. I may be flat, but I’m swelling with intellect.”
“That’s nice, dear. Why don’t I cut the leather strap? I have scissors—”
“No! This is an antique. Worth a fortune. All we need are six numbers. Where in the devil can we find them?”
“Pi?”
“I can’t eat pie, woman. I’m flat as a flake and couldn’t hold a fork if I tried.”
“The number Pi, Mark. Three point one something.”
“Oh.” Mark swam through the spine as fast as a guppy.
Pi. noun: the symbol denoting the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. 3.14159265
“Yes, the numbers! Try them!”
Tickety-tick. “3 1 4 1 5 9. Nope”
Mark pounded on his head with the tips of his thumbs. “Think, think, think,” he said.
The book rumbled. “Here. I found a key in the drawer.”
“A key, huh?” Mark wondered why he had put a key in the drawer. “Does it open the lock?”
“Does a key open a combination lock? Did you really ask me that?”
“Well, why did you bring it up?” He tried rolling his eyes but all he could do was slide them side to side. He swam around the spine and curled between pages 262 and 263.
Key. noun : an instrument used to open a lock, start, or access a mechanism : a map legend : a system of tones and harmonies : a series of numbers on a book’s copyright page used to indicate the edition’s print run
“Eureka!” Mark reveled in his print expertise. “It’s the printer’s key, Ruth. I’m sure.”
“What’s a printer’s key?”
“My salvation, little lady. Listen and learn. A printer’s key lists a series of numbers, the lowest of which is the edition. Since this is a first edition, it’ll have numbers and maybe dates. I’m on my way.”
By now, Mark had become quite adept at swimming, and in no time, he had curled onto the copyright page.
“Here they are. 1 2 3 and 18 17 16. Enter them, Ruth. Hurry.”
Ruth seemed to take her time on purpose. Tickety … tick. Mmm hmm. Tickety … tick. Mmm. Click. The dictionary shook as Ruth tugged the flap free from its clasp. She lifted the cover and flipped to the copyright page.
Mark squinted in the green light of the banker’s lamp and curved his arms toward his wife. He watched Ruth’s hand reach down, grab his ear, and lift him painfully into the air. His flat body wavered as she held him aloft. Flipping to a page near the book’s end, Ruth flopped him back down and closed the book, leaving his feet sticking out.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled. “Get me out of here.”
“Enough of your petty pretentiousness. I’m leaving and you’re staying in the book, Mark.”
He looked at the entry beside his head.
Ruthless : adjective : having no pity. Merciless, cruel