"Uncle. Uncle!"
I look up. I realize Jenny is calling me for some time. She's standing in front of me, frowning, hands on her hips. She wears jeans and a red T-shirt "Brain rulez" written across her tits. It completely ruins her attempt to look serious.
"Yes?" I grin at her.
"I hate to repeat myself" she says.
"Sorry Dear, I was reading."
She sighs. She knows well how deeply I can immerse in a book. I call it deep concentration, she calls it "men cannot focus on more than one thing". Women can multitask, but the male brain just doesn't work like that. When I'm reading, the outside world cease to exist. I submerge into the imaginary world of the story, I breath with it, I live in it.
Jenny crosses her arms. "And where were you this time?"
Where were I? Millions of miles and millions of years away, in another galaxy. I'm reading the House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds. It takes me far away from the everyday troubles, and makes my daily problems ridiculously subtle. This is why I love to read Reynolds. But how could I explain it to my niece? She would roll her eyes and call me a hopeless dreamer.
I try to do it, anyway. I talk her about Campion and Purslane, the two shatterlings who travel across the universe through hundreds of thousands of years, in deep sleep, waking to fly into adventures. They witness the rise and fall of human empires. It puts the mind on test just to imagine the scale of the distance and time they travel. I know Jenny is a practical gal, so I tell her about the trouble the protagonists get into, the danger they face and the adventure they are part of. When I mention that their enemies almost kill them, trying to eliminate their whole genetic line, and I talk about the spaceship chase and the monumental ending, her eyes sparkle with interest.
"Must be hell of a story" she says.
"It is, indeed" I say. I don't mention the things I don't like in the book: it is too long in some places, and all the characters talk exactly in the same punctual, high class way. These doesn't seem important to mention to Jenny.
"Well, since you are listening to me now, could you please give me a hand to bring in the groceries from my car?" she asks.
I supress a sigh, and put my book down. I resist to have a longing look at it, instead I put my arm around Jenny's shoulder, and I ask her while we're walking toward the door:
"What was your day like?"
She smiles at me, and I feel like being the kind uncle she can count on. The House of Suns will patiently wait for my return.
