Some Things About Water

摘要

Let's imagine for a minute that a writer begins the first draft of a story this way: His first drowning took time, as drownings sometimes do. Had he had any control of it he might have speeded things along. Got his drowning over and done with and finished up, as it were. But drownings are rarely well planned, and his own was no expectation. There are, of course, many records of drownings orchestrated by others yet made to appear to be in the remit of the owner, the victims, the innocent drowned. These might be called 'stolen drownings', drownings as contrived as a stage play or the devious makings of a film. The drowned cat, that caterwauling mongrel caught on the hop around the trash. The drowned rat, famous if only because in metaphor that rat, unlike so many others, lives on, whether in reality it ever drowned or not. The drowned lover who, unknowingly spurned, thought his invitation to day on the lake was just the perfect thing for her. Foolish is the heart, that it never protects the innocent. And there is, of course, the case of the famous drowned writer who, on discovering the dimensions of her fame, thought how inadequate it all was, and repaired to the river. Ainsi il va. I guess she knew her great endings.