Books
Books has a friend who writes prose and demands certain words be capitalised in the middle of sentences. She is adamant that this is the way to write, suggesting inflections through capitalisation. I have a go, first capitalising my name at the ends of emails and text messages before slowly moving on, capitalising 'Home' and 'Hat', and making them into verbs as well. I move on to paper and pen, and finally I take to chalking uppercase words like 'Orphan' and 'Phancy' on the sides of bus shelters and old people's homes. Soon, 'c's - oh, shabby metamorphosis! - take on additional 'k's, colons become devices to abbreviate, my beard arrives, elongates and my hair gets more massively curly every day. There follow a few days where I capitalise even piffling words like 'Bean', until finally my upper-case arm, tamed like Dr Strangelove's, is exhausted enough to partially submit to my brain. My memory fails me after I pluck the feathers of a bird I find quashed in the gutter of Cowley Road, sharpen one feather into a quill, and begin to write. What, I know not.
Coming to my senses after some time, after the Specialists, I return home to find the following document at the top of my desk drawer. I reproduce it here, edited as best I could from what I can only presume was my handwriting.
Monday: A trip to the Library confirmed what my Wit should already have made Perfectly clear: there are hundreds of these Essaye-Bookes of which I have heard, waiting to be Harvested by the adventurous Eye. It is a moment's Work to sign out on the Electronick Register, but my allowance of Five Bookes is not Enough. Five will NEVER be Enough. I am about to unbuckle my Rapier, to make his considerable and impartial Eloquence felt, when a delicate Assistant catches my Eye and squeezes it firmly in her Snow-White Palm. Melting inwardly, I grab my paltry Share of the Bookes and flee, for fear of thawing out on the building's Parquet floor.
I reach my rooms before Dusk, and burn Records to keep Warm.
Friday: Alarmingly quickly, I read one of the Bookes, a 'Novel', entitl'd 'Mason & Dixon' and produc'd by a New World author Mr. T. Pynchon, whose plot I feel has been deeply impress'd upon me in some way. The ending of the Booke appears to make my mascara Run and I am so thoroughly Satisfied with this 'Novel' that I fail to Realise that I am in fact Moved, to tears so huge that they are collecting the Powder on my face before dropping to, and Staining, the Rug I have in my rooms.
I light up a Record and sit by it to keep Warm. It is by Square-Pusher and gives off tolerable-good Heat. My landlady threatens Eviction for the third time this week. It is the Hour for Action. I ask the Glass: "Are you Talking to Me?" I feel like a Woman. Fie! Tomorrow! I'll show her. I'll bring Pynchon to this rank Unciviliz'd District.
Saturday: I erect Bill Boards.
Sunday: The Pynchon-Booke has so moved me that I decamp to Portsmouth and scrawl whole passages on the sides of battleships, that other Nations might have the Chance to Enjoy such superlative Syntax, such Marvellous Comedy, such never-ending Unfolding of plot and character that it quite makes me Squirm merely to think on't.
Wednesday: I conduct a ceremony on the Ivory Coast and erect a Flag to the testament of Mr. Pynchon's alarming skill.
Friday: I travel in the desert and hand out copies of M.&D. to all.
Wednesday: I get lost by the traffic lights in Bromley and knock an old Lady out of the way of a speeding carriage with a well-placed throw of the Tome. I am arrested for Bodily Harm (Grievous). I think they shall Sedate me. If I do not Live, then farewell, farewell. My Eyes have serv'd their purpose, in the sweet reluctant perusal of this, fairest and most Proliferating of Bookes.
The document ends here amidst an indecipherable scrawling. Books walks free on a charge of mild battery. We can only wait for the next one.
22nd Jan 2004