Reading, Tuesday. It had been raining all night and the rain-washed streets reflected the dour sky. Mary and Jack walked up the steel steps that led to Mickey Finn's. A lugubrious gym that smelt of sweat and dreams, where hopefuls tried to spar their way out of Reading's underclass. Mickey Finn was an ex-boxer himself, with scarred eyes and a tremor to prove it. In latter days he was a trainer, then a manager. Today he just ran the gym and dabbled in drug-dealing on the side.

'Who are we here to see?' asked Mary as their feet rang out on the iron treads.

'Mickey Finn,' replied Jack. 'He got caught up in some trouble a few years ago and I put in a good word. He owes me.'

They reached the top and opened the doo—

It was a good job the door opened outwards. If it had opened inwards I would not be here to tell the tale. Jack teetered on the edge and I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. The only part of Mickey Finn's that remained were short floorboards that changed to descriptive prose less than a foot out, the ragged ends whipping and fluttering like pennants in the wind. Beyond these remnants was nothing but a dizzying drop to a bleak and windswept sea, whipped up into a frenzy by a typhoon. The waves rose and fell, carrying with them small ships that looked like trawlers, the sailors on board covered in oilskins. But the sea wasn't water as I knew it; the waves here were made of letters, some of which had coalesced into words and on occasion short sentences. Every now and then a word or sentence would burst enthusiastically from the surface, where it would be caught by the sailors, who held nets on long poles.

'Blast!' said Jack. 'Damn and blast!'

'What is it?' I asked as letters that spelt 'saxophone' came barrelling towards us, changing to a real saxophone as they crossed the threshold and hit the ironwork of the staircase with a crash. The clouds of individual letters in the sky above the wave-tossed sea contained punctuation marks that swirled in ugly patterns. Now and then a bolt of lightning struck the sea and the letters swirled near the point of discharge, spontaneously creating words.

'The Text Sea!' yelled Jack against the rush of wind. We attempted to close the door against the gale as a grammasite flew past with a loud 'Gark!' and expertly speared a verb that had jumped from the sea at a badly chosen moment.

We pressed our weight against the door and it closed. The wind abated, the thunder now merely a distant rumble behind the half-glazed door. I picked up the bent saxophone.

'I had no idea the Text Sea looked like anything at all,' I said, panting. 'I thought it was just an abstract notion.'