“Who are you?” he asked.
“I grant powers,” replied the unidentified classmate.
“I wish to absorb a book’s knowledge simply by touching it.”
The classmate nodded and disappeared.
Ralph dashed to the library and, with fingers outstretched, grazed each book as he flew by.
All at once he knew more than he wanted. Not only the horrors of history, but their pattern of recurrence. The awareness that we have never learned.
Ralph woke up, melancholy.