11. Hearts and spades

Rudy Monteverdi and I have been discussing "a reader", the individual who hijacked my last post. I have been telling Rudy there is no cause for alarm, but my reassurances are having the opposite effect on him: "You telling me there is no cause for alarm is itself cause for alarm! If what you have been saying are the thoughts of someone who is not alarmed, I shudder at what you will think or say when you do become alarmed."

He has a point, of course. But I am resolute in my feeling that there is no cause for alarm, even though I am alarmed. Like Rudy, I'm alarmed mainly by my own state of alarm. But there is no cause for alarm! This intrusion by "a reader" into the very body of one of my posts instead of submitting a comment in the appropriate manner is just another one of those circular sub-eruptions that inevitably occur in the unbridgeable gap between the thing and one's perception of the thing. It's a natural constriction of the lower bowels, a minor digestive occasion.

Rudy: "Then why have you fouled your trousers?"

Rudy is speaking metaphorically, no doubt, yet his words spark a new wave of cramps in my lower abdomen, assuming one makes a connection between emotional states and digestion-related unease. If someone's uneasiness is the reason they have a digestive situation, it doesn't necessarily follow that everyone who has a digestive situation is uneasy. This is so often the problem when you try to represent your notion of reality with grammar.

"A reader" makes me uneasy. And for good reason. At no time as I imagined this blog did I envision "a reader" who would actually sublet some or all of my author's space. Someone or something else has injected this agent into the substance of the blog. I have no way of knowing if "a reader" is a friend or foe, a Translator or a Catalyst. (Translators make excellent friends and Catalysts make equally excellent enemies.) I don't know where "a reader" comes from and where "a reader" is going. This is why I'm alarmed (even though there is no cause for alarm).

"Attend me very carefully," says Rudy. "In the second half of Samla BIshap's novel of Geneva Farewell , an imp known only as "a reader" tries to seize control of your first-person narration. It seems that this entity has now found its way into this blog. Perhaps the entity is Samla BIshap herself."

What would Samla Bishap want with this blog? She's riding high on Geneva Farewell in her remote little world, soaking up the accolades, expanding her book tour schedule, talking to executives at Netscope and other video streaming companies about a potential multi-season adaptation of the book. She's having what would be construed in the minds of many authors as the perfect author's moment. She may never again be in a position to do no wrong. Meanwhile my integrity as a self-governing character is being dissed from all sides. I am diss integrating! This is far worse than having to endure the over-indulged good intentions of actual novelists.

"You are certainly being influenced," Rudy says, "but perhaps 'a reader' has been sent by Samla Bishap to help you out of your current predicament. Perhaps she thinks you and

John Levesque have it made with all the personal autonomy that only anonymity can buy. Maybe she hopes some of that anonymity rubs off on her and restores her to the virginal palms of her daughters. My recommendation is that you put together the list of Agents of Mass Reaction 'a reader' requested. Attempt the suffix tongue which is the agent of your incontinence. You really have no choice."

What exactly is my current predicament, Rudy, other than the things we already know about?

"Is that not enough? It has infected your sap and is living on your confusion. Hop to it, Georgia."