Aaron Kunin

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IS THIS A SYSTEM?

(for Sarah Jane Lapp)

"Look at this book," said Mercy. "Someone has underlined in it with a thick black line. Rather messily too. It seems that the purpose of the line is to obliterate the words and not to emphasize them."

"Look at this book," I said. "It doesn't open. Someone has driven a nail through it and nailed it to another book--what other book I can't say, because its cover is entirely obscured by the first one."

"Look at this book," said Mercy. "It's glowing. The words are on fire, but not the paper."

"I can't look at this book," said Hallamore. "It glares at me. It's terrifying."

"This book burned my hand when I picked it up," I said. "I dropped it, and the sound it made hitting the floor gave me a sharp pain behind my eyes and in my forehead. It was like a new understanding of how the head is put together, and how much wasted space there is in there, because there were quite large pockets of emptiness where the pain seemed to end."

"Don't look at this book," said Mercy. "I've hardly glanced at it, and my eyes are on fire--even now, they are brimming with these useless tears."

"This book gives off a greenish light," said Hallamore. "But the light is too faint for you to make out the words in the book."

"A sickening vapor emanates from the pages of this book," said Mercy, "inflaming the eyes and making them itch terrifically, but you must resist the temptation to rub them, because that will only make it worse."

"Look at this," I said. "I cut my thumb holding the corner of this page to turn it. The skin seems to disintegrate around the wound, which extends much farther down than I realized at first, almost to the base of my thumb."

"Look at this book," said Hallamore. "I can't tell if there are any words in it. The ink is exactly the same color as the paper."

"This book sighs when you open it," said Mercy. "You can feel it on your hand--a warm breath of decaying matter."

"I feel as though I've been dipped in boiling water," said Hallamore. "I'm like a book with the cover ripped off and the title page ripped out."

"So I get this strange object in the mail," said Mercy. "It's invisible, but it feels like a book. When I look at it, it's like I'm studying the lines that cross my hand, which supports it."

"Look at this book," said Hallamore. "The pages are mirrored so that you can see only yourself in them."

"You can't look at this book," I said, "because you're inside it, on the other side of the page."

"Look at this book," said Mercy. "I don't understand it. It's in some foreign language I can't identify."

"Put it under your pillow when you go to bed," said Hallamore, "and see if it creates a vivid and continuous dream in your mind."

"Look at this," I said. "This is new. I was holding this book when they told me Valla was dead. My thumb was marking a certain page, and it still bears the impression. The page that my thumb was marking turned red, and the page that my index finger was marking turned yellow, and the pages between them showed an incremental progression to black. And when I removed my hand, it was the same as before."

"When you look at this book," said Hallamore, "you're only seeing a small part of it, because it exists in many copies."

"All these books smell like glue," said Mercy, "and the pages are curling up at the edges."

"Look at this one," said Hallamore. "The pages are falling out."

"John Ruskin," I said, "Sesame and Lilies."

"A book of lectures," said Mercy. "It smells musty; it's about . . . beauty. But I wonder what kind of beauty is supposed to reside in these brittle, dark-yellow pages, which are no longer attached to the spine?"

"This book is coming apart in small flakes," I said, "so that you can't pick it up without getting a lot of it on your hand. How can it have anything to say about beauty?"

"But it is a beautiful book nonetheless," said Hallamore, "and, despite its condition, a repository of the beauty that it wants to preserve as a king's treasure (and which it is slowly destroying as it decays)."

"This book is telling me to smash the windows," I said. "The windows are telling me to toss the book out the window."

"This book is worthless," said Mercy. "Cast it into the fire, therefore."

"This book has neither dramatic tension nor psychological depth," said Hallamore. "Burn it."

"Sesame and Lilies," I said, "out the window. We no longer need or want any text."

"Satisfactory. And why you're throwing the novel out the window?" said Mercy.

"To bring it down to my level," I said. "To confirm your low opinion of me."

"My not-so-high opinion of you," said Mercy, "doesn't require independent confirmation. Why are you throwing the novel out the window?"

"To see if it would kill someone from this height," I said. "To illustrate the death of serious literature."

"That is such a good answer," said Mercy, "that I almost believe you. What part of this defenestration did you not intend?"

"I intended the outcome but not the action," I said. "I intended the failure."

"Then you have succeeded," said Mercy, "if failure isn't always 'failure to succeed.' Why are you throwing the novel out the window?"

"To avoid throwing myself out the window," I said. "It was either the novel or myself."

"Smash!" said Hallamore. "Another book goes through the window."

"Trollope," I said, "Barchester Towers."

"A novel," said Hallamore, "not a piece of sculpture."

"A novel," said Mercy, "not a field guide to wildflowers."

"A novel," said Hallamore, "not an explosive device concealed in a novel."

"A novel not to be used to prop open any door," said Mercy.