[b]Ali Smith
We do treat books surprisingly lightly in contemporary culture. We’d never expect to understand a piece of music on one listen, but we tend to believe we’ve read a book after reading it just once.[/b]
Or just skimming through the Cliffs Notes edition.
When you’ve nothing, at least you’ve all of it.
Perhaps, but why does that matter?
That’s the thing about things. They fall apart, always have, always will, it’s in their nature.
If only since the beginning of time.
Who’s that?
(Silence.)
Who’s there?
(Silence.)
God?
Not exactly.
Well, who?
Where do I start? I’m the butterfly antenna. I’m the chemicals that paint’s made of. I’m the person dead at the water’s edge. I’m the water. I’m the edge. I’m the skin cells. I’m the smell of disinfectant. I’m that thing they rub against your mouth to moisten it, can you feel it? I’m soft. I’m hard. I’m glass. I’m sand. I’m a yellow plastic bottle. I’m all the plastics in the seas and in the guts of all the fishes. I’m the fishes. I’m the seas. I’m molluscs in the seas. I’m the flattened-out old beer can. I’m the shopping trolley in the canal. I’m the note on the stave, the bird on the line. I’m the stave. I’m the line. I’m spiders. I’m seeds. I’m water. I’m heart. I’m the cotton of the sheet. I’m pollution. I’m a fall of horseshit on a country road a hundred years ago. I’m the fly . I haven’t even started telling you what I am. I’m everything that makes everything. I’m everything that unmakes everything. I’m the voice that tells no story.
Truth be told, I’m not even half that.
He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my life. But he really looked like a girl. She was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen in my life.
And simply born than way.
Words words words. Words Words words. Words words Words.
Ain’t it the truth?