But escape to where?
*
But wait, where were we? We’ve gone on an even longer tangent.
Here’s C.
C. Now, it is clear what literature is from the perspective of a conscious subject. The basis of literature is built when the subject leaves his own consciousness in the interpretations of signs and symbols. The ethos of literature is performed when the subjects free the interpretations from everyday thinking. This is done by defamiliarization, swimming in the sea of hermeneutics. When a fish is swimming in an actual ocean, it is the best interpreter and therefore the perfect reader: in the ebb and flow of tides, fish forget all memories beyond seven seconds, continuing their identity in countless, fleeting seven-second spans. This means total freedom — freedom from memory, perspective, and other constructs; they don’t need the interpreted to be defamiliarized, for there is for them no such thing as constraints and fixed modes of thinking. They enjoy this privilege. With no continuous knowledge, a fish probably doesn’t even know if anything is real or not. When it sees a coral reef, it might ask itself, “is this a creature, an imagination, or just a symbol for something else?” Thus, when fish read a book, they swim in it. Dear reader, allow me to risk imprudence and ask again: when you too swim in a book, do you ever read it?
*
The last slice of the setting sun slides off the horizon. You look around your house and do not know where to go. The air around you feels thick with the presence of Some-Ones: the policemen, the officials, the workmen, and the monitors. You are under their unblinking eyes: it’s nearly impossible to hide. Their forces are palpable. If you are caught by Some-One, you can’t be No-One anymore…They can assimilate anyone if they want.
You consider two plans. 1: Find a place that Some-Ones can’t go to. But there is no such place: the Some-Ones administer every corner in the city, spawning an inescapable net. Or 2: Find a place that protects you from the Assimilation.
— And you do have a place in mind! During your time as a student, you came across Borges, and you were awed by his aura and prowess. No, you shall not name him — he gave birth to the first No-One… the first No-One walking out from the Fire temple, the first No-One transforming reality through an eccentric imaginary history, and the first No-One to transform into Cervantes the way you transform into that fish, or that fisherman. He should know how No-Ones can survive in this world.
Fortunately, you have a house with that home library built by the last resident, a librarian who had gone missing years ago. They say on The News that they’re still searching for him, but word is he’s long dead. You remain an avid fan of reading after you graduated, so when you were assigned to this building, you checked out the library immediately, but the perfect symmetry of the shelves disoriented you. Now is the time to walk into this mysterious labyrinth to unearth whatever clues the Father of No-Ones has left you. The shelves stretch like timeless sentinels circularly. The air is thick with the scent of aged paper; their covers have eroded, and their titles are now illegible. You walk into books between the sagging shelves, to the last one where Father’s books lie. You flip through the pages, and your eyes alight at the mention of a distant sanctuary in the depth of the woods to the far East, a place where words, space, and creatures are rid of their shackles, where each book is an infinite possibility, where everything is a combination of 26 characters, periods, commas, and spaces. There holds every conceivable book that has ever been and could be written. You’ve long heard of that place in high school English classes, books, and roadside gossip, and secretly think it's real. If there truly is such a place, then the language these Some-Ones use would no longer make sense there, since everything they say would merely be a random combination of that 26 characters, as a product of chance; if language no longer makes sense, meanings and names will perish altogether. This is your chance at Nothingness. Even if they catch you and call you ▖▜▖, it would mean nothing. Language wouldn’t make sense anymore… The thought of this comforts you: if you find that sanctuary, you’d be free. You will “vanish” from Some-One’s world into that salvation…
A knock at the door. You resist the urge to ask who it is Of course you know who it is, and speaking the language of those Some-Ones is against your rules. You hold your breath.
“If he does not open the door, we will break in.” You hear a Some-One talking outside. Their boots shift and echo on the hardwood floors, their voices low but clear. You hear them opening all the doors to the other rooms and finally approach the library. The slow crescendo of the creaking door. “We’ve been told you’re here. Stop hiding. Why didn’t you go to work?!”
With a sudden bang, the door to the library bursts open. The troupe of Some-Ones file in. Shh. They’d only be lost in this labyrinth of books that look all identical, titleless, and symmetrical — so there’s no indication of position. You hear grunts of frustration. “Come out now! Wherever you are! Punishment is inevitable, but hiding is a bigger crime. ”
The Some-Ones break into groups to examine the bookshelves, to try to make their way through this endless maze. Their progress is slow, but you know even the sea of shelves won’t protect you for long; you have to leave now.
You cautiously emerge, and with movements as gentle as a breath, tiptoe to the shelves on the left and fix your eyes on a window casting a square of light onto the floor, only a few steps from where you are — your portal to escape. With slow, deft hands, you unhook the latch and push the window open.
Click.
They all turn. Cries of shock. Footsteps quicken. One of them lunges. But before a hand could grab ahold of you, you leap out the window and into the cool autumn breeze. You feel yourself hitting the ground and scramble to your feet. The day has dimmed. The city is now steeped in darkness but for a few broken waves catching the moonlight in the distance. It's that time of day when everything seems to melt, even the city hall that once stood so grand and proud under the sun. You can barely see, but still you take off at full speed, not towards the light but towards whatever is on the other end. Whatever happens next, you think, No-One knows.
*
A=B=C, Q.E.D. Goodbye and see you next time.
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