'I have fed you poison, by scruple and grain. Now comes the larger dose.'
When I was younger, by several years-before I had but the outline of what my life was to be; when I had held the book of it, observed the bindings and smelled the dry parchment, but not yet seen what words would lie upon the page-the first of my lessons consisted of copying pages of text, from antique volumes, into a leather-bound book. Once complete, I would erase every single word, rendering it once more blank.
A blank text, do you see? Others might use a slate, in lessons, but as a symbol, this blank volume is far more apt, where I am concerned. Did text not fill my life, to the point where it is as though I am filled with its charge, magnetized so that I am drawn, inexorably, back to it? Do my thoughts not circle, endlessly, about my uncle's library, as if it were some massive celestial object, with a gravity all its own?
Perhaps thoughts may shape events, here, on this island, where so much of reality seems transient, malleable. Witness:
A room, where no room should be, has been; I have walked this path, from the compound door to the southern beach, and each time the bar, the Hub, has been the last structure on the path for some way.
A room, transparently dislocated from its proper place, its proper occupation in space and time; an interior room, taken as if surgically cut from the house, as if an architectural feature could be taken out like an appendix. No, not the appendix: this particular room, to Briar, is far more than extraneous, than vestigial. The heart. Or, perhaps, the liver; is that not where poisons go?
For it is my uncle's library that has appeared by the path. I approached this room-though it was upon a landing, then, not in a path-every day for what seems the entirety of my life.-Was it not? I think that must have been another girl, who existed before this place. Does a moth remember being a caterpillar? I recognize it, though it's incongruity grows with every moment I stand, dazed, and stare. It seems to loom, even as I feel it diminished by the lack of the structure that should, rightfully, surround it, protect and nurture it.
Fairy-tales live real lives, upon this island, mingle and marry and age; I would that a wolf could come along and blow it down, even if it took as payment myself, to be swallowed up. This seems a better fate than what will happen if it stands, what I know will happen; I will be drawn inexorably in, and be swallowed up by my past. Do not think I do not consider, that I could turn and walk away; the sheer fact of this library, cut out and thrown down before me, dictates that I cannot.
I do the only thing I can do, as has ever been the course of my life. I walk to the door-the key is in the lock-and step inside. The brass finger, inscribed on the floor to dictate the absolute limit at which one's eyes may find legible the titles on the volumes that line the wall, I cross without thought. It was never meant to ward out such as me; this has been made my natural sphere.
Everything within, I find as if I had never missed a day at my work, as if the intervening days and months and years-has it been so long?-have been rubbed out, as I used to erase the days lessons from my ledger, day after day, until the pages from so much wear grew fragile. I feel the years erased, and as a fragile page might, I feel myself tear.
I cross to my desk, removing my gloves as I go, to be carefully laid upon the wood. I do not need them here; it is for this purpose I was required to wear them at all, to keep my hands soft, so they would do no harm to the books, to my uncle's poisons, his catalogue of voluptuous texts. It sits on his own desk, his Universal Index of Priapus and Venus, a catalogue of texts concerning every vice and perversion known to man (& woman, & beast, &c). This is, of course, the reason for the finger; so that the household staff would not look upon the titles of the library and know the sort of work to which my uncle put himself. And me, of course. We must not forget Miss Maud Lilly, that most uncommon creature, that poison.
I sit down at my desk, having taken a book from the shelves, and opening it, find it in good condition, as if I had never tossed it in haste to the desk, taken a razor to its pages, liberated it from its service to common vice into something fit only for a fire, and thus far more functional. The only change appears as I watch; spots of wetness. I had not even realized I was crying, even sparsely. I have accomplished nothing, it seems; I thought I would free myself from my clockwork life, but it seems a puppet such as I can do nothing but lie upon its side, once freed from its groove.
I thought that I could do this, by being a villain once, and that having been so fortunate as to find myself here, I could make myself normal, or seem to be so; and in seeming, perhaps I could forget that I was ever such.
I was wrong.-No lesson may ever be perfectly erased. Not only is the page left fragile, but the spectres of the lesson live on, imprinted forevermore in the shape of the page. One might attempt to copy over, start afresh, but the pencil will always slip into the form of what was once written there. Words may change, sentences even, but the book remains the same.
I find myself, then, filled with a peculiar sort of resolve. I cannot be normal. I can approximate such, upon its observation, but to what end? The very word is meaningless, in such a community as this. To be normal, here, is to be the exception, not the rule; it is to be ignored, to be inconsequential. I sought to be free and spent my freedom building myself a cage of rules and manners. And now as if in illustration, the island has presented me with my old cage, torn free of its surrounds so that the bird inside gazes not on a household, but on the forest from which it was taken.
That is, if the windows in this library were not covered over, with yellow paint, and the door not closed.-Although, as I think this, I note that in my daze I have not closed it, have simply let it drift ajar, to stand more tantalizing than any portal thrown wide open to the inspection of all.
As if my becoming aware of it is a cue-attention a hand pulling upon a rope, to signal the next event-the door opens.
[Cut for length. Maud's just found her item, and as a consequence, the gloves are off. Both literally and figuratively. She's been crying but has stopped, is nonetheless still quite agitated, and although she doesn't know it she's been truthed so she'll tell folks exactly what the deal is.]
A blank text, do you see? Others might use a slate, in lessons, but as a symbol, this blank volume is far more apt, where I am concerned. Did text not fill my life, to the point where it is as though I am filled with its charge, magnetized so that I am drawn, inexorably, back to it? Do my thoughts not circle, endlessly, about my uncle's library, as if it were some massive celestial object, with a gravity all its own?
Perhaps thoughts may shape events, here, on this island, where so much of reality seems transient, malleable. Witness:
A room, where no room should be, has been; I have walked this path, from the compound door to the southern beach, and each time the bar, the Hub, has been the last structure on the path for some way.
A room, transparently dislocated from its proper place, its proper occupation in space and time; an interior room, taken as if surgically cut from the house, as if an architectural feature could be taken out like an appendix. No, not the appendix: this particular room, to Briar, is far more than extraneous, than vestigial. The heart. Or, perhaps, the liver; is that not where poisons go?
For it is my uncle's library that has appeared by the path. I approached this room-though it was upon a landing, then, not in a path-every day for what seems the entirety of my life.-Was it not? I think that must have been another girl, who existed before this place. Does a moth remember being a caterpillar? I recognize it, though it's incongruity grows with every moment I stand, dazed, and stare. It seems to loom, even as I feel it diminished by the lack of the structure that should, rightfully, surround it, protect and nurture it.
Fairy-tales live real lives, upon this island, mingle and marry and age; I would that a wolf could come along and blow it down, even if it took as payment myself, to be swallowed up. This seems a better fate than what will happen if it stands, what I know will happen; I will be drawn inexorably in, and be swallowed up by my past. Do not think I do not consider, that I could turn and walk away; the sheer fact of this library, cut out and thrown down before me, dictates that I cannot.
I do the only thing I can do, as has ever been the course of my life. I walk to the door-the key is in the lock-and step inside. The brass finger, inscribed on the floor to dictate the absolute limit at which one's eyes may find legible the titles on the volumes that line the wall, I cross without thought. It was never meant to ward out such as me; this has been made my natural sphere.
Everything within, I find as if I had never missed a day at my work, as if the intervening days and months and years-has it been so long?-have been rubbed out, as I used to erase the days lessons from my ledger, day after day, until the pages from so much wear grew fragile. I feel the years erased, and as a fragile page might, I feel myself tear.
I cross to my desk, removing my gloves as I go, to be carefully laid upon the wood. I do not need them here; it is for this purpose I was required to wear them at all, to keep my hands soft, so they would do no harm to the books, to my uncle's poisons, his catalogue of voluptuous texts. It sits on his own desk, his Universal Index of Priapus and Venus, a catalogue of texts concerning every vice and perversion known to man (& woman, & beast, &c). This is, of course, the reason for the finger; so that the household staff would not look upon the titles of the library and know the sort of work to which my uncle put himself. And me, of course. We must not forget Miss Maud Lilly, that most uncommon creature, that poison.
I sit down at my desk, having taken a book from the shelves, and opening it, find it in good condition, as if I had never tossed it in haste to the desk, taken a razor to its pages, liberated it from its service to common vice into something fit only for a fire, and thus far more functional. The only change appears as I watch; spots of wetness. I had not even realized I was crying, even sparsely. I have accomplished nothing, it seems; I thought I would free myself from my clockwork life, but it seems a puppet such as I can do nothing but lie upon its side, once freed from its groove.
I thought that I could do this, by being a villain once, and that having been so fortunate as to find myself here, I could make myself normal, or seem to be so; and in seeming, perhaps I could forget that I was ever such.
I was wrong.-No lesson may ever be perfectly erased. Not only is the page left fragile, but the spectres of the lesson live on, imprinted forevermore in the shape of the page. One might attempt to copy over, start afresh, but the pencil will always slip into the form of what was once written there. Words may change, sentences even, but the book remains the same.
I find myself, then, filled with a peculiar sort of resolve. I cannot be normal. I can approximate such, upon its observation, but to what end? The very word is meaningless, in such a community as this. To be normal, here, is to be the exception, not the rule; it is to be ignored, to be inconsequential. I sought to be free and spent my freedom building myself a cage of rules and manners. And now as if in illustration, the island has presented me with my old cage, torn free of its surrounds so that the bird inside gazes not on a household, but on the forest from which it was taken.
That is, if the windows in this library were not covered over, with yellow paint, and the door not closed.-Although, as I think this, I note that in my daze I have not closed it, have simply let it drift ajar, to stand more tantalizing than any portal thrown wide open to the inspection of all.
As if my becoming aware of it is a cue-attention a hand pulling upon a rope, to signal the next event-the door opens.
[Cut for length. Maud's just found her item, and as a consequence, the gloves are off. Both literally and figuratively. She's been crying but has stopped, is nonetheless still quite agitated, and although she doesn't know it she's been truthed so she'll tell folks exactly what the deal is.]