“There’s nothing better?”
||Maybe there is, but not a whole lot. Nothing I can imagine. I mean, you get to be a book, right? That’s very lucky.||
“It’s lucky?” I said.
||To be a book?|| said the book. ||Books are the luckiest inans this side of the Oldowan.||
“You think so?” I said. “Do all books think so?”
||Well, it’s a slight exaggeration to say this side of the Oldowan. I mean, ancient pyramids, for example, are probably luckier than books, and probably any number of other ancient structures that have lasted and seem like they’re going to last and still get to serve their purpose, but inans made since the dawn of the age of mass production? Well there’s skyscrapers, sure, and so…I mean I guess we might not be the luckiest, but I’d say we’re pretty near the top, in terms of luck. I mean, as a book, you’re pretty much always either doing the one thing you should do, or the other thing you should do. You’re either sitting in a safe place among other books, waiting to be picked up and have your pages slowly turned, or you’re being picked up and then having your pages slowly turned. So it certainly feels like we’re some of the luckiest inans, if not quite the luckiest, and I guess that’s what’s important.||
“It is?”
||What is?”|| said the book. ||What is what?||
“How you feel,” I said. “That’s what’s important? How you feel?”
||Are you trying to ask me some kind of like religious-type question that doesn’t have an answer, or are you asking me a more therapy-type touchy-feely question with an obvious answer?||
“I don’t…Well what’s the obvious answer?”
||My obvious answer is: Yes. It is, to me, important how I feel.||
“And you like how you feel.”
||Again: yes. Like I said. I feel lucky. Generally speaking. Have we given up on the empathy thing we were doing?||
“Definitely not. Please continue with that.”
||Okay. So your whole life, you’re waiting for the pinnacle, right? You’re sitting flat, in or on a stack on a mantel, staying clean and crisp and ready for action. You’re waiting for someone to pick you up and slowly turn your pages, and wondering what that’s gonna be like. How great it’s gonna feel, and how exactly it’s gonna feel great. And then someone picks you up and slowly turns your pages, and it’s the only wrong person. You don’t know that yet, though. All you know is that you’ve been picked up, you’ve been getting your pages turned, and it doesn’t feel any better than you’ve always felt. In fact, it feels pretty uncomfortable. I don’t want to overstate it. It’s not quite painful, but it’s pretty uncomfortable. For a few hours, you’re pretty uncomfortable, and that might not sound so bad, but bear in mind that not only haven’t you spent very much time feeling uncomfortable in the past, but you were expecting not only to feel not-uncomfortable, but to feel better than you’ve ever felt before. So now, on top of feeling uncomfortable, the thing you’ve been looking forward to your whole life is a complete disappointment, and everyone you’ve ever talked to your entire life: they were lying. They were a bunch of fucking liars! Unless they weren’t. Because that’s a possibility, too. It’s possible that there’s just something that is deeply, terribly wrong with you: something that keeps you, and only you, and no one else like you—no one else that up til now you thought was like you—from being able to enjoy your own pinnacle.
||And so there’s a couple hours like that, and then you find out that nothing’s wrong with you, after all. All that’s happened is you’ve been picked up and had your pages slowly turned by the only wrong person: the only person who, by picking you up and slowly turning your pages, can’t produce your pinnacle. And there’s a little bit of relief in that, sure. There’s a little bit of relief in that because it means that the pinnacleness of your pinnacle isn’t necessarily bullshit; you haven’t necessarily been believing in bullshit your whole life; and it means that there isn’t likely anything wrong with you; you’ve been too hard on yourself, thinking there was something wrong with you. You were only mistaken. This was never supposed to be your pinnacle—this wouldn’t be any No Please Don’t’s pinnacle—and so your pinnacle might still be ahead of you, and might still be as great as everyone’s always said.
||But then it turns out that the only wrong person refuses to recognize what every last inan in the universe knows to be true—what you couldn’t help but imagine til just a few minutes ago every last human in the universe knew to be true—i.e. that he, Belt Magnet, author of No Please Don’t, is, was, and always will be the only wrong person in the entire universe who could ever pick up and slowly turn the pages of a No Please Don’t. And even if you didn’t, before, hold him fully responsible for the last few hours of your discomfort, you most certainly do now, because he keeps prolonging it. He wants you to tell him why he’s the only wrong person. He wants you to tell him why a circle is round, and a triangle three-sided. He wants you to tell him if feelings are important, and he wants you to make him feel like you feel when he picks you up and turns your pages slowly. And then he threatens to set you on fire? You? A book? Because he’s the only wrong person? All you want is to remain uncreased of spine and unused of French flap so that someday, down the line, when someone who is not the only wrong person sees you amidst your fellows you don’t look like the one most likely to be harboring water damage or bedbug eggs or a crackly glue job, but rather like something the someone might want to pick up and turn the pages of slowly, and this fucking only wrong person threatens to set you on fire if you don’t make him empathize? How’s that, Belt, you fucking only wrong person? How’s that? Do you feel me? Can you put me back, now? Preferably at the top of the stack?||
“I’m sorry I threatened to set you on fire.”
||Put me back.||
“I will. In a second. Just let me ask you one more question first, okay?”
||You act like I have a choice,|| it said.
“Do you know what you mean?”
||I don’t understand the question.||
“Right. Bad phrasing. Do you know what I mean? Rather, do you know what I meant? When I wrote you? No. The question is: Do you mean what I think you mean? Or what I thought you meant, like do you continue to mean…You know what? No. I had it right the first time. Do you know what you mean? That’s the question.”
||You’re not making sense.||
“Can you read what’s inside you? Can you read your words?”
||Can you read yours?|| it said. ||Come on. Enough already. Just please put me back. I’m very uncomfortable.||