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Calibration | Jun 26 2003

Is it unfortunate that one always knows in advance how long a story or poem or novel is? Sometimes I think it is, for that knowledge greatly affects how one reads; one does a kind of internal calibration, much the calibration one does before a trip, orienting oneself to a specific anticipated duration.

This makes me think of a text whose length is unknown to the reader. You see only a single line or group of lines at any one time. After reading this line or group of lines, you push a button and another line or group of lines appear.

No one has to tell me how maddening this would be, to not know where the end is. And yet this is what a relationship is: a story of unknown duration. The difference being that a relationship, as lived, is unwritten. The button, when pushed, produces a blank page—an empty stage, if you will, on which to enact another scene; the final scene, possibly, like all the others.