CONTRA-FICTION
The Book is finished and The Book goes on. It existed before it was
written, waiting for
its time. The first author was its medium, his life its living page. He
found it in the
darkness, he found it in his mind. It was Outside and non-existent but
moved behind his
eyes. Without his hand it could not be but once it was it moved at its own
commands.
Yellow-beak paused from its high-pitched chant. Do you like that? it
asked, earnestly,
querulously.
The author stroked his half-shaven chin - Maybe, maybe. It'll mean
another visitation
from Hilaricon.
Hilarius, the bird intervened. I wasn't trying to be funny, its scribe
protested. His
name, defended Yellow-beak, His full name.
Pedant, muttered scriptor. He was uneasy, he said, about the
contradictions, take the
interview with the ghost, the logic's full of holes - he calls death
permanent then talks of
fading spectres, they acknowledge The Book is closed then create another
page.
Contradiction is the fact of fiction, the bird maintained.
The writer looked about his poor kingdom, his book crammed, paper-strewn
little room,
his ill-comforting domain. What about the punctuation, he spoke out to the
air.
Punctuation varies between episodes to sidestep authority and functions as
a metonym
for creative liberty, quoted and jingled the feathered theorist.
It leaves me open to attack, his maker complained.
The bird told its author something secret. Then something else again. I
see, but there's
still the contradictions, a thoughtful writer pondered.
Yellow-beak faded on the slow moving air, its ghostly outline lingering in
the mid-
morning sun. I breathed deeply, tasting the moment, my solitude, my life.
Then the beak re-appeared. It told another story.
What? - I cried - How old?
The bird regained its form then flew about my head four times.
This isn't real, I shouted as I disappeared.
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
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