He often reflected, while writing, upon himself, writing: reflecting another. Who he was, who he was not. Absence and presence locked in intimate simultaneity, a cogent pairing. Who is this Other, writing? And does he reflect upon me? Why do I perceive him as if through a thin rippling sheet of plasma—he appears to me as a soluble phantom with whom I have nothing in common, yet to whom I feel ultimately bonded.

   I feel as if: I am writing, therefore the Writer, and the presence of the Other, let’s say above me and off to the left (to constellate a fixed point of orientation), affirms this notion by stating—He is the Writer, writing … which, instead of validating my existence, strikes a contrary note: he is the Writer, not me, he, this thing. And if I cast these words at Him, nothing, not a word, and the length and girth of silence stuns me into understanding: If not written, He would not exist.

   So who the hell is writing, who is responsible for creation, His and the pages? Also, how could he be writing and see Himself, not Himself, writing Himself, the written, and reflect upon it in such a way. Something happening, something not happening. Something there, something not there. A person referring to a person, yet no one is being referred to—there is no one to do the referring.

   And so these words, from where do they come? Thin air? The interstices between being and not-being? Are these the words of the dead, the words of the unborn, the words of the dreamed, the undreamed?

  A portrait of a writer sitting at his desk, pen in hand, suspended between air and contact with the page, and he is being watched, therefore defined, in a narrative by the watcher (who is also the voice). In other words: A writer, sitting at his desk, pen in hand, suspended between air and contact with the page, and he starts to write—A writer, sitting at his desk, pen in hand, suspended between air and contact with the page … and the story will end, as it begins.