along or was something you had merely imagined being down there and had in fact invented while you were hauling. I sometimes wonder, for example, how much I actually remember about Clarence. And now, with all my pages on the floor and there being so many of them and none of them numbered, I can’t go back and look in the typed pile either. And it is not even a pile of pages, more like a slither or slew—they are spread out all across the floor, as if I had flung them there. Broadcast, I think, is the word for that kind of flinging. Contemplating the sheets of paper broadcast across the floor, I think, Well, I am going to have to do something about that, but then I don’t do anything about it. Strewn across the floor like that, the pages remind me of my typing days with Clarence, when I used to send one sheet after another to the floor on purpose, as a sign of indifference and disdain, while he was busy numbering his (at center bottom, the numeral bracketed by hyphens) and stacking them neatly next to his machine. When a stack had attained a certain thickness, he would pick it up and heft it, the same way he hefted pistols at a gun show, and sigh. Like Papa, Clarence had faith in accumulation.
I woke up this morning feeling lightheaded. Going down the hall I had to put out a hand to steady myself on the bookcase. I went over and sat in the armchair, where I fell asleep again, and woke up with the sun shining on my face. I dropped food into the tray, pushing the pellets through the wire lid one at a time, so as not to have to lift it, and when they hit the tray some of them bounced out into the shavings. The odor in there is terrific. Droppings are piling up along the edges; it seems to prefer the edges. I said, “Sorry, Nigel,” said it out loud, and he looked up as if he understood. It struck me that his eyes are quite intelligent; they have a glittering quality that could be taken for that, though I suppose it would sound odd, in the case of a person, if one were to say, “His eyes glittered with intelligence.” I have made coffee and placed it next to the typewriter. The surface of the coffee vibrates each time I strike a key, and the sunlight, reflecting off the trembling liquid, casts bright rippling circles on the ceiling, like water into which a stone has been tossed. I was still quite young, at boarding school, when I learned how to type, and from the first day everyone could see that I excelled at it. I was quite precocious, really, they said, and they were surprised by that, because I was not athletic otherwise, in ways involving the larger muscle groups. I was clumsy and slow at softball, field hockey, and games of that nature. It was the team aspect of those that did me in and made me slow and clumsy, because I wanted to be elsewhere. I typed right through college, becoming faster every year. Had I been a run-of-the-mill typist, I might never have formed the idea of finishing; it would have seemed preposterous, impossibly out of reach at normal speed. Mama had imposed piano lessons practically from infancy, and a line of governesses had followed suit, and I suppose the lessons contributed to my success at typing, though I failed to become a superior pianist, as my heart was not in that either—willfully failed is what they implied, what Mama implied, when Teacher told her. I could strike the right notes most of the time, but I was plodding and timid, is what Teacher said, looking at me fiercely. Not that I dislike music; on the contrary, in the early days, if I knew Clarence was going to be out of the house for a long while, I liked to play records while I typed, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra being a favorite at the time, though now, were I to hear it, I suspect I might not much care for it. I don’t have a record player, not one that works, so I can’t find out if that is true, and if I try to recall it in my head, I don’t hear anything there. I hear a great many things there, actually, but not
I woke up this morning feeling lightheaded. Going down the hall I had to put out a hand to steady myself on the bookcase. I went over and sat in the armchair, where I fell asleep again, and woke up with the sun shining on my face. I dropped food into the tray, pushing the pellets through the wire lid one at a time, so as not to have to lift it, and when they hit the tray some of them bounced out into the shavings. The odor in there is terrific. Droppings are piling up along the edges; it seems to prefer the edges. I said, “Sorry, Nigel,” said it out loud, and he looked up as if he understood. It struck me that his eyes are quite intelligent; they have a glittering quality that could be taken for that, though I suppose it would sound odd, in the case of a person, if one were to say, “His eyes glittered with intelligence.” I have made coffee and placed it next to the typewriter. The surface of the coffee vibrates each time I strike a key, and the sunlight, reflecting off the trembling liquid, casts bright rippling circles on the ceiling, like water into which a stone has been tossed. I was still quite young, at boarding school, when I learned how to type, and from the first day everyone could see that I excelled at it. I was quite precocious, really, they said, and they were surprised by that, because I was not athletic otherwise, in ways involving the larger muscle groups. I was clumsy and slow at softball, field hockey, and games of that nature. It was the team aspect of those that did me in and made me slow and clumsy, because I wanted to be elsewhere. I typed right through college, becoming faster every year. Had I been a run-of-the-mill typist, I might never have formed the idea of finishing; it would have seemed preposterous, impossibly out of reach at normal speed. Mama had imposed piano lessons practically from infancy, and a line of governesses had followed suit, and I suppose the lessons contributed to my success at typing, though I failed to become a superior pianist, as my heart was not in that either—willfully failed is what they implied, what Mama implied, when Teacher told her. I could strike the right notes most of the time, but I was plodding and timid, is what Teacher said, looking at me fiercely. Not that I dislike music; on the contrary, in the early days, if I knew Clarence was going to be out of the house for a long while, I liked to play records while I typed, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra being a favorite at the time, though now, were I to hear it, I suspect I might not much care for it. I don’t have a record player, not one that works, so I can’t find out if that is true, and if I try to recall it in my head, I don’t hear anything there. I hear a great many things there, actually, but not
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