WE'RE DONE NOW

All then that remains is for me to relate those closing moments, that final confrontation, that heroic act - and its terrible consequences.

before the full moon had passed over the girls' run the channel opened it was full moon and not two nights before when Gilbert had laid himself down and here he was at once in Papalaz's writing room delivered safely but not from evil for his was the kingdom and the power but no glory he recalled Dick's mention of the mirror and chanced a glance across past the Laz's shoulders as he hunched over the trusty glowing rusty trypewriter seeing in reflect a man not young and yet not yet aged a face made up he thought but mayhap not to look like a coon face surmounted with a wig surely of outrageous goose grease laden curl amok and a mockery. this image that brought his own to mind looked back at him and winked. a cruel knowing wink of no humour. and then he started to rise to get out of the chair Gilbert fingered the gun in his belt but need not have Laz spoke a smile around his mouth not in his eyes though they were asparkle all along "I'm just going upstairs to the toilet Dave it's all yours to make of what you will when I come back we will talk of plots and character and sealing wax and adverbs and we shall put the world of literature back together. I'll enjoy that. And you may too". A tall man with noble posture erect and daunting he moved to the door and passed or seemed to straight through it an illusion? the door swung silently to as he left a waft of stage makeup in his wake coconut oil on his hair? Leichner?

odd Gilbert sitting now in a still warm seat peering myopically at the text half out of the platen he reaches forward and picks up the two boxes the omnium and the nihilum (the quark and anti-quark) with perfect assuredness a strange prestidigitation follows all fingers and elbows angles and twists. and in a whisper like two barn owls passing overhead on a still summer night in the olive groves the pair slide open in perfect synchronicity. no bang just a whisper and Gilbert looks at them unbelieving. where is the clap the crack the thunder?

rocking back in anger and the chair he slaps himself and poises his hands above the once familiar keyboard for a final fateful time and shift to uppercase P and down a p p a he continues until he has typed the thunderword Pappappapparrassannuaragheallachnatullaghmonganmacmacmacwhackfalltherdebblenonthedubblandaddydoodled that will release the power of all texts. what's this? quietly he listens to the quiet and thinks he hears the Laz returning but no - CRUSH, CRACK, CRICK, CRICK - something is tearing he looks at the yellowing A4 in the platen and rolls it up three lines a tiny microscopic almost invisible hole has opened deep deep black so black that is as if he is staring for staring he now is at absolute nothingness the hole grows and the sound of Crush, crack, crick, crick repeats again and again in a rising tempo the boxes glow now the trypewriter too the whole desk is aglow and the room itself is flooded with a light that he recalls from a painting he once saw where? of the burning of Joan of Arc it is becoming hot the words on the page slip across the surface of this old stock paper like wax on water like the frontispieces in old books he recalls fingering in public libraries of his youth and the sound repeats as the words letter by letter slip into the whirlpool that is now the tiny hole but growing. soon the sheet is blank clean once more its virginity reconstructed. the very edges of the desk are curling upward now the corners of the room bending plasticly now he is in a Dali world that has the spine gone from it where everything is finally pliable. he pushes the chair back away from the desk as the four corners rear up like horsemen to be devoured in the maw of the trypewriter that seems now to be sucking with a ferocious maelstrom force at the very fabric of the room his ears are humming from the constant Crush, crack, crick, crick rising in pitch now harpy like. Horror and resignation pass across his face - and satisfaction - this is how it had to be - the books fly down from shelving stacked around the walls and disappear into the machine of obliteration the words sliding out of them as they approach the mighty force the pages ripped from their fine bindings Alexandria Alexandria!

the shelving is next bending twisting curling into the trypewriter the cosmic word machine molten metal pouring down into the furnace the forge of language that this terrible machine has become he smiles and feel a tugging at his hands those too they must pass a fine spray of particles from the walls whistles past him as the Crush, crack, crick, crick reaches a manic chuckle. there are no colours anymore there is no substance only melt everything is liquid or is about to become liquid or has been liquid all form flow flow flow unstoppably into the trypewriter that glows now like the very heart of hell stoked by every writer ever to write the walls rush past him into the gape and he he finally surrenders totally. in this finale of final moments his quarks have joined with the chair and together they make their final trajectory into the glowing pulsing mouth from which no word can ever emerge lest it be on the other side of language. And then the corners of the machine itself give up the struggle having consume everything it is about to devour itself ......................

the rest is silence - a wordless silence - in which no Crush, crack, crick, crick is heard

(NOT to be continued ... )