Pär and I made this pact to each read a certain book that the other one recommended. Having agreed to read these books, we've put them at the top of our reading lists, and we must read them before we can read any other novels. Non-fiction is okay, but no fiction is allowed until I finish the book he assigned me. This has meant, since The Stone and the Flute is huge and hard to get through, is that I haven't been reading any fiction at all since April.

I was talking about sign language and Pär mentioned that the aliens in Celestis, a book by Paul Park, use a form of sign. They communicate only through that and some kind of telepathy.

"That sounds interesting," I said. "I'll have to read it. After I've finished The Stone and the Flute, of course."

"I'm worried that The Stone and the Flute is going to sit in the way and block you from ever reading fiction again," he said.

"No, I'll finish it eventually. It's a good book, I'll get through it."

"Uh huh," he said, fixing me with a keen glance. "How's that going, by the way?"

"Um..."

"Been reading it a lot lately, have you?"

"Well, no," I admitted. "But I will. I will. It's just that the book starts so slow! I mean, I'm seventy pages into it, and nothing much has happened yet! Don't worry, I'll keep reading. It's just a slow starter, but I'm sure I'm about to get to the good action."

Pär's lips twitched.

"What?" I said.

"The beginning of the book is where all the action is," he said, and started to laugh. "That's as fast-paced as it ever gets."

"What!"

He was laughing too hard to speak.

"Nothing's happened yet, and I've got eight hundred pages to go! How can I have already seen all the action? What can possibly fill the rest of the book?"

"It's really beautiful writing," he managed to say between chuckles.

"Pär, tell me what is so great about this book that you're making me read it?"

He calmed down enough to look at me with a straight face. He considered the question, then spoke.

"It teaches patience."

He burst into laughter again.

"Get out," I said.

The sound of giggling followed him into the next room.

"I have no patience!" I called after him.

"That's why you should read it!" he called back.

"Go away!" I shouted.

I could hear him laughing to himself as I contemplated the grim facts of my immediate future. Eight hundred pages of absolutely nothing happening. The novel I assigned him is too good for that man; I should have made him read Finnegans Wake.