Mr Cogito and the little Creature
It’s unclear whether anyone knows
its personal zoological name, so small is it, so low, near the very bottom,
beyond the naked eye. It is something that wavers between existence and
absence, insignificant, fleeting as a scrap of print, a particle, the paring of
a diacritical mark, the chip of a comma, a speck of lead from the printer’s
cabinet.
I open my winter reading and there
it is crouching down on the page, a Very Little Creature, motionless at first,
but soon it is off on its way, sniffing between the lines, and then it lurches
ahead like a horse from the stable, forward at the speed of the Very Little
Creature’s light (the creature is blind).
This season (it may be the last
season of my life)—everything was as before, the Very Little Creature amused me
and warmed my black heart, when one day I decided to give the book to friends
in London. I made a parcel of it and sent it off. With the Creature inside.
What does it do during the long
sea voyage? It has plenty to read; it doesn’t eat very much; but what does it
think of me, its old companion who proved so treacherous?
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