Prayer of a Lonely Copier

With each stroke of my wrist, the sharp point of my quill transforms this delicate sheet of dry parchment. This vile concoction of black tar, sticky with the smell of melting life, is all that imbeds these letters, these words which themselves are life. Sitting at this wooden slat with candles all around burning away so close to my life's work, I toil endlessly because this is my lot. I hear everyday of the filth, of the dirty sacrilege preached by my brothers and of the perversion of this simple message and it sickens and spurs me on. I will continue to copy these words because they are the key to freedom from this life of destruction and unsatisfied desires. As I write I drift into every state imaginable. The words are both fresh and my greatest enemy. One day they are new and the next they are nothing more than a boulder to push up a never-ending hill. But my heart knows better than to lose my faith in these books, and my heart knows things which my mind can't possibly fathom. Though my back aches and my legs grow stiff and I long for the company of anyone, even though I believe I have lost all ability to relate to my fellow man, I will continue to pen these words until my time is through. It is not for me to know how and when and for what result these pages will be used, but I know that there is a future and a hope in the simple message they repeat through the stories of their authors. I am thankful for this work, I am thankful for this solitary life, and I am thankful that I have been invited to be a participant in the salvation of all those who will one day have the privilege of reading the offspring of these simple manuscripts. So I sit in silence and I copy, I work and I toil, and in these words I find life.