sure.
Telling a story, you must lay out “events”—in a chronological sequence. Or rather, you must establish a chronological sequence, so that you know what your story is, and can “tell” it.
Only in time, calendar-time and clock-time, is there chronology. Otherwise—an entire life is but a nanosecond, as swiftly ended as it began, and everything has happened at once.
Possibly, this was what Andre meant. His field was galaxy evolution and star formation in galaxies—his boyhood obsession had been a hope of “mapping” the Universe.
M.R. had had few lovers—very few. For men were not naturally—she supposed, sexually —attracted to her. Her weakness was for men of exceptional intellect—at least, intelligence greater than her own. So that she would not be required to mask her own.
The sorrow was, such men seemed to have been, through her life, invariably older than she. And some of them cynical. And some worn like old gloves, scuffed boots. Most were married and some twice- or even thrice-married.
She did want to be married! One day.
She did want to marry Andre Litovik.
He’d tried to discourage her from accepting the presidency of the University. She’d had a sense that he was fearing his girl-Amazon might drift from him after all.
If truly he loved her—he’d have been hopeful for her, proud of her.
Or maybe: even an exceptional man has difficulty feeling pride in an exceptional woman.
M.R. tried to determine where she was. Ever more uneasily she was conscious of time passing.
Ready you must be readied. It is time.
A sign for SPRAGG 7 MILES. SLABTOWN 13 MILES. A sign for Star Lake, in the opposite direction— 66 MILES.
Spragg—Slabtown—Star Lake. M.R. had heard of Star Lake, she thought—but not the others, so oddly named.
Abruptly then she came to a barrier in the road.
DETOUR
ROAD OUT NEXT 3 MILES
You could see how beyond the barrier a stretch of road had collapsed into the Black Snake River. Quickly M.R. braked the Toyota to a stop—the earth-slide was shocking to see, like a physical deformity.
“Oh! Damn.”
She was disappointed—this would slow her down.
She was thinking how swiftly it must have happened: the road caving in beneath a moving vehicle, a car, a truck—a school bus?—plunging into the river, trapped and terrified and no one to witness the horror. Not likely that the road had simply collapsed beneath its own weight.
Death by (sheer) accident. Surely this was the most merciful of deaths!
Death at the hands of another: the cruelest.
Death by the hands of another who is known to you , close as a heartbeat: the very cruelest.
By the look of the fallen-away road, vines and briars growing in cracks, a tangle of sumac and stunted trees, the river road had not collapsed recently. Beechum County had no money for the repair of so remote a road: the detour had become perpetual.
Like a curious child—for one is always drawn to DETOUR as to NO TRESPASSING: DANGER —M.R. turned her car onto a narrow side road: Mill Run. Though of course, the sensible thing would be to turn back.
Was Mill Run even paved? Or covered in gravel, that had long since worn away? The single-lane road led into the countryside that appeared to be low-lying, marshy; no farmland here but a sort of no-man’s-land, uninhabited.
At a careful speed M.R. drove along the rutted road. She was a good driver—intent upon avoiding potholes. She knew how a tire can be torn by a sudden sharp declivity; she could not risk a flat tire at this time.
M.R. was one who’d learned to change tires, as a girl. There was the sense that M.R. had better learn to fend for herself.
In fact there had been inhabitants along the Mill Run Road, and not too long ago—an abandoned house, set back in a field like a gaunt and etiolated elder; a Sunoco station amid a junked-car lot, that appeared to be closed; and an adjoining café where a faded sign rattled in the wind— BLACK RIVER CAFÉ.
Both the Sunoco station
Telling a story, you must lay out “events”—in a chronological sequence. Or rather, you must establish a chronological sequence, so that you know what your story is, and can “tell” it.
Only in time, calendar-time and clock-time, is there chronology. Otherwise—an entire life is but a nanosecond, as swiftly ended as it began, and everything has happened at once.
Possibly, this was what Andre meant. His field was galaxy evolution and star formation in galaxies—his boyhood obsession had been a hope of “mapping” the Universe.
M.R. had had few lovers—very few. For men were not naturally—she supposed, sexually —attracted to her. Her weakness was for men of exceptional intellect—at least, intelligence greater than her own. So that she would not be required to mask her own.
The sorrow was, such men seemed to have been, through her life, invariably older than she. And some of them cynical. And some worn like old gloves, scuffed boots. Most were married and some twice- or even thrice-married.
She did want to be married! One day.
She did want to marry Andre Litovik.
He’d tried to discourage her from accepting the presidency of the University. She’d had a sense that he was fearing his girl-Amazon might drift from him after all.
If truly he loved her—he’d have been hopeful for her, proud of her.
Or maybe: even an exceptional man has difficulty feeling pride in an exceptional woman.
M.R. tried to determine where she was. Ever more uneasily she was conscious of time passing.
Ready you must be readied. It is time.
A sign for SPRAGG 7 MILES. SLABTOWN 13 MILES. A sign for Star Lake, in the opposite direction— 66 MILES.
Spragg—Slabtown—Star Lake. M.R. had heard of Star Lake, she thought—but not the others, so oddly named.
Abruptly then she came to a barrier in the road.
DETOUR
ROAD OUT NEXT 3 MILES
You could see how beyond the barrier a stretch of road had collapsed into the Black Snake River. Quickly M.R. braked the Toyota to a stop—the earth-slide was shocking to see, like a physical deformity.
“Oh! Damn.”
She was disappointed—this would slow her down.
She was thinking how swiftly it must have happened: the road caving in beneath a moving vehicle, a car, a truck—a school bus?—plunging into the river, trapped and terrified and no one to witness the horror. Not likely that the road had simply collapsed beneath its own weight.
Death by (sheer) accident. Surely this was the most merciful of deaths!
Death at the hands of another: the cruelest.
Death by the hands of another who is known to you , close as a heartbeat: the very cruelest.
By the look of the fallen-away road, vines and briars growing in cracks, a tangle of sumac and stunted trees, the river road had not collapsed recently. Beechum County had no money for the repair of so remote a road: the detour had become perpetual.
Like a curious child—for one is always drawn to DETOUR as to NO TRESPASSING: DANGER —M.R. turned her car onto a narrow side road: Mill Run. Though of course, the sensible thing would be to turn back.
Was Mill Run even paved? Or covered in gravel, that had long since worn away? The single-lane road led into the countryside that appeared to be low-lying, marshy; no farmland here but a sort of no-man’s-land, uninhabited.
At a careful speed M.R. drove along the rutted road. She was a good driver—intent upon avoiding potholes. She knew how a tire can be torn by a sudden sharp declivity; she could not risk a flat tire at this time.
M.R. was one who’d learned to change tires, as a girl. There was the sense that M.R. had better learn to fend for herself.
In fact there had been inhabitants along the Mill Run Road, and not too long ago—an abandoned house, set back in a field like a gaunt and etiolated elder; a Sunoco station amid a junked-car lot, that appeared to be closed; and an adjoining café where a faded sign rattled in the wind— BLACK RIVER CAFÉ.
Both the Sunoco station
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