— Who was that, Ingram, did you see?
— No ma’am.
— I do believe it was Lilly’s husband, I have seen him before on this road. I wonder what he was doing there?
— Oh dear, what a nuisance. I did promise Lilly. Lilly is such a very excellent woman.
We can make our errors in a thought and reject them in another thought, leaving no trace of error in us. Comment and percolate. Sooner or later the bladder must be emptied, leaving no trace of urine in us. Explicate and connect. The grey base of the olive-tree darkens and steams a little.
Sooner or later a bowl of gruel will be set down on the wrinkled wood inside the rectangle of light. Unless perhaps it is set down in a round pool of light.
Mrs. Ned’s bungalow is on fire. The glass verandah doors of Mrs. Ned’s bungalow reflect the last rays of the setting sun, but the other bungalows are extinguished. The fig-tree looks blasted. Its thick black twigs poke upwards into the dusk, out of contorted branches. The dark trunk leans along the edge of the bank at an angle of forty degrees inside which, from the road, the lower section of the brown clapboard wall next to the verandah may just be seen, that is, with the help of the knowledge that it can normally be seen from this position. One of the branches sweeps downwards out of the trunk, away from the road, forming with the trunk an arch that frames the lower section of the wall within it, the frame merging into the darkness of the clapboard wall. The thick long twigs on this down-sweeping branch grow downwards first, then up, like large U-letters, almost invisible against the dark patch of grass and the dark wood of the bungalow beyond. It is the knowledge of their shape which makes them visible. Discuss and titillate.
The glass door of the verandah reflects a green light, in which a filmy monster shifts into view, cut into three sections. The top section frames a jellyfish, the middle section a tiered hierarchy of diagonal wobbles, the lower section two thin trunks, wavering like algae. The lower section two thin trunks as still as trees; the middle section a tiered hierarchy of frozen diagonal zigzags with two arms that can lift away out of the tiered zigzag to form two angles of forty-five degrees, two angles of ninety degrees, two angles of a hundred and eighty degrees, continuing the two thin trunks up into the top section on either side of the jellyfish. Sooner or later the identity will be called out. And here is Mr. Blob in our studio tonight. Mr. Blob, you’ve been cutting yourself into three sections of different wriggling shapes for twenty years now, beating your own record year after year. Can you tell us why you do it?
— Yes. I can no more help doing it than breathe, you see. It’s something inside me that drives me. Like climbing a mountain, one must get to the top, you see. Of course one could give up and go down again, but it’s so much more satisfying to go on, however difficult, it gives one a sense of purpose, you see.
— But isn’t there a very real danger of complete disintegration?
— I might of course disintegrate, but that is a risk worth taking.
— Worth taking for whom, Mr. Blob? What can really be the point of an activity which costs one and a half million every time and keeps two hundred and ninety-seven people fully occupied all along the operation assembly line just seeing to it that you don’t disintegrate?
— In these days of severe unemployment Mr. Hatchet, I don’t think that keeping two hundred and ninety-seven people occupied can possibly be called wasteful. They are all extremely loyal and believe in it tremendously, without them I would be as nothing and I must say that. It may look pointless to you but the ionization industry is backing it heavily. Each time, technical discoveries are made which help them considerably in their research. Ultimately however the greatest importance of my achievement — modest though it may be in scope — is that it adds to Ukayan prestige abroad and in the whole world.
— But Mr. Blob, this record for, what is it, I quote, standing still in near disintegration, it’s your own record you keep beating. No one else has the slightest desire to compete with you.
— It doesn’t matter whose record it is. I think you will find that in the long run any world record broken adds to Ukayan prestige abroad and in the whole –
— Mr. Blob: thank you very much.
— Eh!
The picture has been quite replaced.
— Oh, good evening Mrs. Ivan. Nice evening. Er, yes, I was just looking at the verandah door to see if, well, to see –
— Yes?
— To see myself, Mrs. Ivan. Not you I assure you. I apologise. I disintegrate.
— My verandah. Okay?
— Okay.
— Goodnight Mrs. Ivan. Thank you, thank you Mrs. Ivan. Goodnight.
The bead curtain crackles. The kitchen is rounded by the twilight. It is the knowledge of the shape and size of the kitchen table and chairs which make them visible. In absolute blackness, however, the knowledge of their shape and size would not make them visible, it would merely guide the sense of touch. Is this true or am I mad? Discuss and denigrate.
The remedy lies in the sudden pool of light, set down in the wrinkled wood. Behind the hanging beads the door is shut. The stone floor between the doorway and the table is dark brown and still.
The remedy is called Metabol. The light over the table makes a moon in the darkness beyond the window. Below the moon is the jellyfish. Closing in on the jellyfish it is possible to see deep within it, a rectangle of faint orange light, itself enclosed in the black trapeze-shape that is Monsieur Jules’s shack and melts into the darkness beyond the kitchen window. Moving the jellyfish a little it is possible to capture other black trapeze-shapes deep within it. The view from the kitchen window, when it can be seen, is of innumerable low-built bungalows. The remedy is for emotional manifestations. But then, she will complicate life for herself, sitting back in the cushions of the vehicle as it glides towards the tall wrought-iron gates. Her face is cavern-blue.
— Who was that, Ingram, did you see?
— I don’t know ma’am, a Colourless man.
— Oh but his eyelids were all right. I do believe he is a doctor, I have seen him before. Stop the vehicle, Ingram, I feel so ill.
Inside the jellyfish beyond the kitchen window, the night engulfs. The conversation, during the hammering, takes the form of admiring murmurs and modestly expressed advice. The hanging beads over the doorway are mottled and still.
— Whatever were you doing at sunset on your verandah?
— At sunset?
— Well, it was just getting dark. You had your arms lifted up above your head and you were dancing about like a puppet on strings.
The trapeze shape is enormous and quite black.
— Mrs. Ned?
— Anyone at home?
— Hello, there?
— Mrs. Ned. It’s me. I came to see if your tub is all right.
— Hello? Mrs. Ned. I’ve been given a job.
During the hammering the conversation is one-sided.
A tape-recorder might perhaps reveal certain phrases that came and went, leaving no trace of error in us. Everything that moves increases risk.
The first failure is the beginning of the first lesson. Learning begins with failure. The green thermoplastic hose, held downwards into the night, with the right-hand six centimetres away from the brass nozzle-holder, and with the brass nozzle-holder almost touching the night-black earth around the small castor-oil plant, would perhaps be black in the circumstances, and give a black or maybe silvery jet which does not remove or disturb the earth but flows gently into it. The dark jet must not touch the delicate stem and the right arm is a model of still control. The blackness, however, nudges.