[ WP ] You 're in hell , your punishment is to read a book that is infinite , every 1000 years the bookmark you placed in it vanishes forcing you to start from the beginning .

“ What is this that thou hast done? ” 
 
 But I was never beguiled. My harsh hunger for knowledge was only my own. The pangs drove me, tantalised and baited me but never gave me nourishment. As I lay to sleep for the last time all that my life-long hunt had provided me was emptiness, I knew more than ever that I knew nothing. This emptiness seeped out as my eyes closed and soaked into my sickbed, washing over the pages I had been gnawing at, filled the room and extinguished all light, all smells, all sound. 
 
 This repose did not last and despite all my reckoning, I awoke with the book before me. Tall and slim yet weighing heavily on a simple lectern. I approached with curiosity, my head clear and bright. There was yet more to discover it would seem and I ran my hand across the richly ornate cover. 
 
 Into the thick leather had been embossed an exceptionally detailed representation of an apple tree. Roots to blossoming flowers finely filled with gold, more filigree than gilt, but worked so carefully to show the fractal jutting, twisting growth. I could comprehend such growth botanically or mathematically but the depth and lucidity of this artist's representation was deeply disquieting. The closer I examined, the finer the details became, the roots increasingly multiplied and continued to writhe deeper than it would seem possible, the branches grasped further and higher almost seeming to spiral and twist as I watched them. 
 
 With a wrench of vertigo I quickly flung open the folio and to my relief the text was neatly penned onto crisp, gossamer vellum. It brought to mind the miniature icons painted onto spider's silk. The script was small but legible, filling the page from margin to margin with no apparent breaks. With interest I began to read. 
 
 This book appeared to be knowledge itself, every question that I had asked of life found their answers here. New theories and explanations leapt out at me, blindingly obvious in their simplicity. Many times I slapped myself in astonishment, laughed aloud at how I could have missed such blatant truths. It soon became apparent that this book was the work of a true polymath, the further I read, the grander the ideas became and yet I never seemed to get close to reaching the end. There always seemed to be just a few more pages and I dared not flick further in case I lost my train of thought. 
 
 Swept away with the authors teaching I felt on the verge of that final realisation, perhaps the next page would be the one to provide the final word, to give that final twist of the lens to bring everything into focus, I snatched up the book, as it seemed that finally all of the strands had begun to tie together, I was but a few short lines away from the nexus I had sought for so long, in my haste the cloth page marker snagged at the lectern wrenching the book from my hands. 
 
 I had been too hungry again, my repast unsatisfying. The book had landed with a dense thump, the apple tree facing me again. Impossibly it seemed to have grown yet further, the branches now heavy with fruit. Gingerly I reached to lift it back into position without studying the cover too closely and now I felt the weight of it. 
 
 With a struggle I laid the book onto the lectern and turned to the opening page. The script was in the same hand but the vellum was cracked and ancient. In places the ink was barely legible and with a shiver I considered just how long it had taken me to read and comprehend everything up until I had foolishly dropped the thing. 
 
 The shock had made me entirely lose my concentration and the threads of understanding had again unwound. I ran my finger across the same opening lines which had seemed so sincere and clear before. With a sigh of relief I saw their clarity again. But after just a few lines I realised that these were not the same truths that had been revealed to me before. The wording was almost identical but the ideas did not tally with what I had previously learned, carefully turning a few cracking pages at a time I tried in vain to discover the seeds of that perfect moment of understanding that I had almost reached. Desperately I dragged the pages back to the beginning and now the text was different again, almost telling me the opposite of what had been written earlier. 
 
 I allowed myself to follow what was now written, the curiosity still present and my despair lightened as I came to see the reason present in this new text, I again became engrossed, snatching at the words greedily, desiring to know more, turning one page almost before finishing the last, with a gasp of annoyance I turned too many at once and tried to return before I again lost this insight. But even turning back a few pages the text was again alien and strange, taking apart what I thought I believed, mocking those who subscribed to such a theory. 
 
 Now I let myself look closely at that cover, roots and branches infinitely complex. The branches are bare now. The fruit has fallen and rotted and I wonder if anyone gained sustenance from it. 
 
 I turn the page and begin to read.
