Ed literary panics once he gets inside his house again, he is truly terrified of what is to come. The card he found in the mail is The Joker and Ed feels like it mocks him since the last message is for himself. Ed doesn´t sleep that night, he just waits for the morning sun to arrive. On February 7th Audrey knocks on the door asking why Ed has been so quiet the past couple of days, but he just says he is waiting for something to come. That same day, a bald man with a moustache comes to Ed´s apartment and tells him to go to the cemetery. There, two men that work for whoever is sending the cards to Ed, tell him that he shouldn’t die the same way his father died; a quarter of what he could have been. A few days pass when Ed picks up a man with a cap that tells him to drive to 26 Shipping Street (that is Ed´s address and if I'm going to be honest, when I read this I opened my eyes so much I was afraid that I would never close them again). When they get to said address, Ed recognizes the man in the backseat as the gunman who tried to rob the bank in the beginning of the story; he had already completed his sentence in jail and was now a free man. Then they go to 45 Edgar Street (Ed's first address), then to Milla's house, then to Sophie's place (she ran barefoot in her track competitions). They visit Angie and her kids, the Rose brothers and Father O´Reilly at his church. They go to the Tatapu residence, then to the Italian restaurant and to his mother's house, then to the old cinema where Ed saw a movie with Audrey. Afterwards, they go to Ritchie’s place, and to Marv´s, and then to Audrey´s. When Ed goes back to his apartment, he realizes that the gunman (whose name is never mentioned) went to jail for the sake and happiness of the people Ed helped. Inside his apartment, there is a man with short brown hair who tells Ed that he came to town a year ago and saw Ed, his mom, his dog, and his dad being buried. This man killed Ed´s father, organized the bank robbery, instructed the man from Edgar Street to beat up his wife, and made Ed a “less-than-competent taxi driver”. The man gives Ed a folder with everything he wrote for Ed, with every person he ran into and every idea he had (even the conversation they were having at the moment was in the folder). The man leaves Ed alone with his thoughts. Ed doesn´t know the man´s name but thinks he´ll learn it soon enough, he is sure that the man wrote about all of this but wants to write the story himself anyways. He´ll start with something like “the gunman is useless” (and that is how the book starts), but you know, odds are that it won´t be Ed´s name that is in the cover of the book. That afternoon, Audrey comes over to Ed´s apartment to hang out but wants to stay permanently with Ed. They kiss but Ed still wants to check the folder to see if that was supposed to happen but Audrey stops him. She tells Ed that if they want to be together, it should belong to them and not to the folder. Ed then realizes, in a beautiful and cruel moment of reality, that he didn't have to deliver messages to other people; he is the message.
““And if a guy like you can stand up and do what you did for all those people, well, maybe everyone can. Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.” He becomes intense now. Emotional. This is everything. “Maybe I can…”” (353)
In this quote, the man that turns out to be sending the cards to Ed (that I seriously think is the author himself), tells Ed that the reason he did all of this was for Ed to be greater than himself. I thought about this a lot and I ended up with the conclusion that the author wanted to inspire the readers to do something beyond ourselves. Like, you know, Ed was just a cab driver but was capable of helping all those people in the town and got nothing in return. You know, if Ed could do it, maybe I can too. Maybe I can do something beyond myself and get nothing in return. My mom always told me that I should at least make one good action every day and, although I try to, I don't always do it. I hope that when I grow up, I will be able to say that I did something beyond what I'm capable of and got nothing in return.
“Of course you're real - like any thought or any story. It's real when you're in it.” (354)
This quote is more of an answer to Ed's question. Ed was so confused when the man showed up with the folder that he just asked if it all was real, which makes sense in a situation like that. I was also questioning my existence in this part of the story, but unlike Ed; I am real. Sadly, my dear Ed, you are just a character inside a novel and have no rights or decisions whatsoever; but I do (thankfully). I am my own person and I can decide what messages I'm going to deliver. Maybe I'll just try to help others just like Ed did, or maybe I'll just cause trouble so someone else is the hero. I am the only one who can decide what is good or bad and right or wrong for my life. Thankfully, I am not trapped inside the words in a book and I can put my own words in a story. It feels good to be real.
So, I've finished the book (just in time). I was honestly surprised with the ending and with who turned up to send the cards to Ed. I am not one bit disappointed though, I am amazed with the ending of the book. When I (finally) figured out that the person that was sending the cards was in fact the author, I wanted to scream on the top of my lungs so that my entire neighborhood knew that Marcus Zusak had just made me question my entire existence with the ending of “I am the Messenger”. My first thought after reading the book was: "What am I supposed to do with my life now that it's over?" But then I was like; "no, calm down everything is going to be okay, it's just a book." (This thoughts were going on inside of my head just if you were wondering.) But is it just a book? (This is my answer.) Yes, maybe, perhaps, no. Just a book wouldn't have left me emotionally unstable, just a book would not make me feel as if my best friend moved away, and just a book would be easy to forget. So no, this is not just a book; it's a good book. A good book that taught me to share, it taught me that there are not many people who deserve the truth, it taught me that you can always be bigger than before (even if you think it's enough). It taught me that even though things might get hard, you don't have to let small details (or even big) bring you down. There was so many people and things that wanted to bring Ed down and make him give up, that when Ed successfully finished delivering the messages, I was proud to say that I admire a fictional and non-existent character in a book. So after over a month of writing this blog, I came to the conclusion that nothing lasts forever, everything has an ending and that we should enjoy what we have while we have it. (This book for example).
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