Overlope: a collaborative fiction (fragment)

Written in January 2001

CHAPTER 2

AFAR A POOL AFAR A MALL

Lacking coordinates ordinate yourself in the sand ceaseless shifting inscrutable there is a way out there is not a way out there is another place there is not another place where you are where you will be where you might have been where you were you are where you were where you always were in the sand in the sand not the sand of the coast not the sand where you trod arm in arm intermittent shingle the odd stone innumerable shells ah shells that is what is lacking here shells even one would do and pools are wanting too there is much here that is wanting that’s soon said but it remains undeniable to the extent that it is almost axiomatic vis-à-vis the place we are in if it is a place that is that there are no pools or rather that there are few of them although perhaps as many as you would expect in such a zone desert they call it but it’s just sand whatever fancy name you want to give it sand which shifts or doesn’t or which shifts so imperceptibly that it may as well not have moved as far as you are concerned

afar a pool afar a mall it is becoming crowded in this desert such facilities! and amenities! you are being spoilt for choice well it happens I’ve heard it said that in the desert you fall prey to illusions so it must be a case in point but the drought the drought it would get to you you would need a slaking to slake the infinitive by way of a first person modulation of the verb in question and its embodiment in a kind of vital charade to satisfy both protagonist for there we have you you squirming prototype and the audience come now you will do me the honour of attending to this little spectacle will you not? in short you are in need of a drink hence the mall hence the pool both afar both opposed both ablur