Every book in Mr Sen’s second-hand shop had a final page missing.<\/p>\n
Not torn.<\/p>\n
Not damaged.<\/p>\n
Blank.<\/p>\n
Customers complained.<\/p>\n
Mr Sen only smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinish it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most people thought it was a marketing trick.<\/p>\n
Then Tara bought a mystery novel.<\/p>\n
She read it in one night.<\/p>\n
On the final printed page, the detective entered an abandoned railway station and discovered the person responsible for the crime.<\/p>\n
Tara turned the page.<\/p>\n
Blank.<\/p>\n
Furious, she grabbed a pen.<\/p>\n
The detective looked behind the ticket counter and found the missing necklace.<\/strong><\/p>\n The words disappeared.<\/p>\n Then new handwriting appeared.<\/p>\n Wrong.<\/strong><\/p>\n Tara dropped the pen.<\/p>\n Another sentence formed.<\/p>\n Try again.<\/strong><\/p>\n Heart pounding, she wrote:<\/p>\n The detective realised there had never been a necklace.<\/strong><\/p>\n The page paused.<\/p>\n Then:<\/p>\n Closer.<\/strong><\/p>\n For twenty minutes, Tara wrote endings.<\/p>\n Each vanished.<\/p>\n Finally, annoyed, she wrote:<\/p>\n The detective stopped searching for the answer someone else had hidden and asked why everyone assumed there had to be one.<\/strong><\/p>\n Nothing happened.<\/p>\n The words remained.<\/p>\n Beneath them appeared one final line:<\/p>\n Now you understand.<\/strong><\/p>\n The following morning, Tara returned to the shop.<\/p>\n Mr Sen was shelving books.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is that book?\u201d<\/p>\n He smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cThe same thing every story is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n He handed her another.<\/p>\n \u201cA question waiting for a reader.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every book in Mr Sen’s second-hand shop had a final page missing. Not torn. Not damaged. Blank. Customers complained. Mr Sen only smiled. \u201cFinish it yourself.\u201d Most people thought it was a marketing trick. Then Tara bought a mystery novel. She read it in one night. On the final printed page, the detective entered an<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[637,616,631,622,617,620],"class_list":["post-4796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-studio","tag-arts","tag-book-reviews","tag-creative-writing","tag-fiction","tag-literature","tag-personal","enable-dropcap","disable-2-columns"],"yoast_head":"\n