LOS ANGELES, March 21 – I just want to get everything where it belongs.

All these fucking pieces that were firmly nestled and fitted, joined in a smooth symmetry that recalled the uncarven block, they’ve exploded over the floor, sprayed the ceiling and walls, stained the rugs and drapes, scattered into corners and behind heavy furniture.

And now I’ve got to find them all, crisscross the room, overlay a grid on the space and collect every one.

And put the fuckers back together again.

This story, that when it was an idea was an unblemished whole, like a particle being observed and fluxing from state to state has unraveled in the act of being written down.

There’s a clock on the operation. My own clock. A relentless timepiece that ticks in an echoing chamber somewhere back of my mind. Time running down, challenging me to race about the room, scramble for the scraps and tatters of the story, put them back together again.

It’s an illusion. I think. The story did not exist. I mean, I’m writing the fucking thing now, how can it possibly be broken and in pieces? How can I be tripping over low tables as I try to reassemble it when the fucking thing isn’t done?

But it feels like that.

Fight that.

It feels like something that was once together has flown apart. Fight that, motherfucker.

It feels like I’ve broken the vase that was cherished and I only have another fifteen minutes to get it glued back together before anyone gets home and sees what I’ve done.

Fight that.

You can’t fight that. That’s what it is.

The story was an idea. And the idea was simple. By prying at the idea, by trying to peek inside and see how it fit together, how the moving parts interact, I’ve broken it. And I can’t stop. Each fragment is endlessly complex. I can parse it and split it and shake cogs from it without end. Look at them. They’re all over the fucking place!

I tried to do it the right way this time. Keep a record. As each piece is taken out assign it a number, place it carefully on a sheet of paper in it’s properly labeled box. When it’s time, you just snap them all back into place. But I lost track. And I got frustrated at one point and threw a couple parts at the wall. Others I saw no possible function for and tossed aside. And these notes! What is that word? What the hell was I directing myself to do? What slot to be fitted by what fucking flap?

How an I going to get all this shit where it belongs?

Leave the room, close the door, do something else, try to do something else, you know the mess is in there. How can you not know? You’ve got bits of the mechanism in your pockets, lodged in the cuff of your pants, caught in the folds of your shirt. What’s that in my hair? How the fuck did that get there? And where does it go? Shit. I better go back in there and see if I can figure what this is for. How it works. And why.

That piece there, that’s the bit that’s meant to explain why all of us, everyone, is broken. That’s for Grandfather Elephant to say to Web. An important part. I know it is. I just can’t remember where it goes.

Looking for glue,

charlie

Read, Damn You, Read!

Marshal Zeringue wants you to read. Hell, he wants everyone to read. That’s the point of The Campaign For The American Reader. It’s also the motivation for the The Page 69 Test. I apply the test to NO DOMINION right HERE.