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Murmurs | Aug 15 2002

I have this document where I keep fragments of things. I call it “ideas.” Periodically I return and read through it from the beginning. Most of the pieces I write emerge from these fragments.

Mainly I change things; I read through the fragments and make small changes, a few words here or there. This is what happened just now. I found a little fragment I liked okay but that didn’t seem quite right. Too many commas, too broken up and stuttery. Is the word staccato? I don’t feel like looking it up right now, but I think the word is staccato.

So I removed a few commas. That made it better. Then I realized that it was a quote from Beckett. I had changed a quote from Beckett. I put back the commas.

I don’t know: perhaps it’s a dream, all a dream. (That would surprise me.) I’ll wake, in the silence, and never sleep again. (It will be I?) Or dream (dream again), dream of a silence, a dream silence, full of murmurs.