Chapter 9

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• Late the next night, I sit in my office at home, staring at the strange markings on the cover of the ancient-looking tome. I flip through the pages. The first few are written in some foreign language. No, several languages! Arabic? And that’s Greek I think. It seems to be instructions, an introduction to the book, but it’s as if it’s trying to be as cryptic and hard to follow as possible. After the first few pages, the rest of the book is blank. Almost like a journal. Or a book left intentionally unfinished. And there are pages missing. Roughly, almost angrily torn out. The homeless guy really didn’t take good care of this thing, whatever it is.
• A bit of Googling and I find similar looking characters. It’s not just Arabic, but Classical Arabic, from the Middle Ages I guess! Not used for much nowadays. Then Ancient Greek. And Hebrew too. And maybe three other languages I can’t quite figure out. A total of six! With every sentence switching to another language. What the fuck is this book?