There's the pounding again.
He's still at it.
Or must I say it continues to be at itself?
I suppose I will never again walk in the manner of a fellow with grace. Even were I to launch an investigation, would I not have to hobble? Limp there, be denied every courtesy, be made to limp myself away onward into deepening offense?
They're slamming now.
My God, they're slamming.
It could be an excavation, it sounds to me like — the gouging out — through tissues of plaster, of tile, of concrete — of a grave.
No, no, it's the building itself!
They are wrecking the building itself, can't you see? It's the demolitionists! Can you credit it? — the dogs have gone and brought in the bleeding demolitionists, haven't they? — whilst here was I, Lish himself, so absorbed in these self-imitations of myself — nay, these self-destructions of myself! — as never to have heard them — but they did, didn't they? — they had to have, hadn't they? — ring, rang, rung my bell.
NO SWIFTER NOR MORE TERRIBLE A CONFESSION
THE SENTENCE I MOST DREAD hearing is please, sir, step to the side into the street, sir. Or I suspect I should have written it "Please, sir, step to the side into the street, sir," or perhaps, prettier still, in italics.
I don't know why this is.
I don't think it owes to my practice of walking always as far from the curb as I can get. Which means near to the store fronts, near to the shop fronts, and therefore not infrequently straight into the path of those citizens ambling closely along there-along in order that they have an unobstructed line of sight into the dressed-to-the-nines display windows of the United States of American commerce.
But as to the practice I mentioned, I certainly do indeed know what this owes to, yes—i.e., which I have taken care to italicize in witness of my dereliction firstmost among the aforesaids—i.e., keeping my motion, when it is parallel to the thoroughfare, as distant on the perpendicular as I can get it from the curb, this on account of the cant of the sidewalk.
They cant them here where I live.
For to provide for the run-off into the street.
Of rain, of snowmelt, of what-have-you. E.g., schmutz.
Creating thereby an inclined plane — however slight the elevation of which I see no reason for me not to seize advantage of. For I am short, am of unaverage measure, am of below-average stature — and therefore feel myself ever so much less challenged when passing my fellow humankind if improved, if bolstered, if increased by the not at all dismissable gain the higher ground guarantees me if I seize it.
At least when I am here in the city.
But when do I ever take myself thither from this city? I think never. Yet were I to, it first comes clear to me first this very instant, were I, the undersigned, to venture forth from here into field and swale, into swale and dale, then mightn't I be free, even for the littlest while, of this dreading that so vexes me?
Such an awful sentence.
"Please, sir, step to the side into the street, sir."
"Please, sir, step to the side into the street, sir."
Unless it were to have the power to pursue me into all its cruel transmutings — so that it could become, in its most pastoral use, sir, step to the side into the hollow, sir — or, in its most fanciful, the pit.
Well, it's all a matter of your making room for Eros — between Pygmalion and Narcissus.
Quotes and unquotes all around, everyone.
Yours truly, the author of this.
APPEARANCES
THE ONLY APPARENT GOOD to come of his encounter with the ravishing Chinchilla Benét was the renewal given to his residence after this person had agreed to consign her body to it for the span of a pair of nights.
He began with the bed, stripping it of its linen and of its various accessories — the mattress pad, the lamb's wool spread that lay beneath the mattress pad, the layer of ruffled foam rubber that lay beneath the lamb's wool spread. The linen and mattress pad he took to his washing machine, adding a dose of his most astringent detergent. The lamb's wool spread he fetched to the dry cleaner, tarrying while the deed was done, all the more promptly to see to the return of this object to his premises so that the great labor before him might be, without undue delay, gotten on with.
The layer of ruffled foam rubber — this he discarded at the service elevator, thereafter telephoning a bedding company for overnight delivery of a replacement.
He poured bleach into the commode and allowed it to stand for the time it took for him to scrub — scour, could we say? — the exterior surfaces of the porcelain.
He thereupon activated the flushometer in order that the way be cleared for a serious exertion on the interior, and then, this task brought to an end, put himself to sleep on the floor of the facility, waking the next day to the bedding company's proof of its promise of reliability, or was it its sympathy that it had warranted?