Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Personae
- I: Early Days
- One. Control
- Two. Doubt
- Three. Fate
- Four. Same
- Five. Fine Arts
- Six. In Loco Parentis
- Seven. Settling
- Eight. Neighbors
- Nine. Prospects
- Ten. The Lucky
- Eleven. Instruction
- Twelve. Same
- Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
- Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
- Fifteen. The Reason
- Sixteen. That Person
- Seventeen. Predictably
- II: Writing Teacher
- Eighteen. Early Poems
- Nineteen. Motivation
- Twenty. Allegory
- Twenty-One. Grief
- Twenty-Two. A Portrait
- Twenty-Three. Veils
- Twenty-Four. Soft Power
- Twenty-Five. Lists
- Twenty-Six. A Break
- Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
- Twenty-Eight. Custom
- Twenty-Nine. Parity
- Thirty. Fortune
- III: Volta
- Thirty-One. Images
- Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
- Thirty-Three. Letters
- Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
- Thirty-Five. Love
- Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
- IV: Your Best Reader
- Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
- Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
- Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
- Forty. Détente
- Forty-One. Worlds
- Forty-Two. Recognition
- Forty-Three. Persistence
- Forty-Four. And Then
- Forty-Five. Mingling
- Forty-Six. You
- Forty-Seven. Persona
- Forty-Eight. Est et Non
- Forty-Nine. The Author
- Epilogue
- Afterword: The Libertine
- Acknowledgments
- About the Authors
The prisoners each reach a conclusion, or so it seems to the writing teacher in his dream, by interpreting the inertia they have perceived. They successfully rule out both scenario A and scenario B. Each jogs joyfully forward to attempt to be the first to tell the warden the tale of how they came to their shared conclusion. As only one prisoner can be released, each must hope to be the sole individual to benefit from this collaboratively established realization. They are all running now . . .
The writing teacher wakes up the next day puzzled by what he has seen. How can anyone win if all three of the prisoners share the same conclusion? Yet, all the same, he feels pretty good.
He stares at his wife, who is already on her feet and moving around their room.
Five days pass. Then another day. Maybe a week flows by. During this time, the writing teacher does not see the student who did not know how to begin her story. Then it is time for class again. The class meets and the student is there. They are going to discuss a story written by a different student, a fact that brings the writing teacher a modicum of relief, a certain sense of safety. They discuss this new story, which is a well-crafted tale about disappointment in college. The writing teacher is pleased.
Forgetting his recent history with the student who did not know how to begin her story, the writing teacher throws caution to the wind and recounts his recent interesting dream regarding the black-and-white-circle game played among prisoners. He describes the dream, just as it occurred to him.
The students listen. The writing teacher has the distinct impression that they find him to be a gifted raconteur. It’s a fairly cerebral set of events all in all, and yet they do not look bored.
“I woke up,” the writing teacher concludes, “feeling mystified. It’s amazing the little things the unconscious brain can produce!”
The students are nodding. This is to say, the students are all nodding except for the student who did not know how to begin her story. There she is in a striped sweater.
The student who did not know how to begin her story raises her hand.
“Yes?” says the writing teacher.
“I have a question,” the student says. “Maybe it’s an observation, I’m not sure.”
“Shoot!” says the writing teacher, with what he hopes will pass for breezy enthusiasm.
“So, I’m thinking about your dream. Though distributed across this weird imaginary time, it’s not really a story. It sounds deceptively like a story, but it’s not actually a dynamic arrangement of events. Rather, it’s a discrete series of what I’d call entailments? It’s like an elaborate, folding scaffold.”
“Hmm,” says the writing teacher.