Read Online Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster - Free Book Online Page B

but one thing, and as far as Mr. Blank was concerned, there was only one pebble on the shore that counted, and if he couldn’t have that one, he wasn’t interested in any of the others. Time changed all that, of course, and as the years went on he came to see the wisdom of his mother’s remark. Now, as he continues to glide around the room in his white nylon socks, he wonders how many pebbles there have been since then. Mr. Blank can’t be sure, for his memory is nothing if not defective, but he knows there are dozens, perhaps even scores of them – more pebbles in his past than he can possibly count, right up to and including Anna, the long-lost girl of so many years ago, rediscovered this very day on the infinite shore of love.
    These musings fly through Mr. Blank’s head in a matter of seconds, perhaps twelve, perhaps twenty, and all the while, as the past wells up within him, he struggles to maintain his concentration so as not to lose his balance as he skates around the room. Short as those seconds may be, however, a moment comes when the bygone days overtake the present, and instead of thinking and moving at the same time, Mr. Blank forgets that he is moving and focuses exclusively on his thoughts, and not long after that, perhaps less than a second, two seconds at most, his feet slip out from under him and he falls to the floor.
    Luckily, he does not land on his head, but in all other respects the tumble qualifies as a nasty spill. Pitching backward into the void as his stockinged feet struggle to gain a purchase on the slippery wooden planks, he thrusts his hands out behind him in the vain hope of softening the impact, but he nevertheless hits the floor smack on his tailbone, which sends forth a cascade of volcanic fire through his legs and torso, and given that he has also fallen on his hands, his wrists and elbows are suddenly ablaze as well. Mr. Blank writhes around on the floor, too stunned even to feel sorry for himself, and as he wrestles to absorb the pain that has engulfed him, he forgets to contract the muscles in and around his penis, which he has been doing for the last little while as he skated into his past. For Mr. Blank’s bladder is full to bursting, and without making a conscious effort to hold it in, as it were, he is on the verge of producing a shameful and embarrassing accident. But the pain is too much for him. It has pushed all other thoughts out of his mind, and once he begins to relax the aforementioned muscles, he feels his urethra give way to the inevitable, and a moment later he is pissing in his pants. No better than an infant, he says to himself as the warm urine flows out of him and runs down his leg. Then he adds: Mewling and puking in his nurse’s arms. And then, once the deluge has ceased, he shouts at the top of his lungs: Idiot! Idiot old man! What the hell is wrong with you?

Now Mr. Blank is in the bathroom, stripping off his pants, underwear, and socks, all of which have been drenched and yellowed by his involuntary loss of control. Still rattled by the blunder, his bones still aching from the crash to the floor, he flings each article of clothing angrily into the tub, then takes the white washcloth Anna used for the sponge bath earlier and wipes down his legs and crotch with warm water. As he does so, his penis begins to swell from its present flaccid state, rising from the perpendicular to a forty-five-degree angle. In spite of the multiple indignities Mr. Blank has been subjected to in the past minutes, he can’t help feeling consoled by this development, as if it somehow proved that his honor was still intact. After a few more tugs, his old companion is sticking out from his body at a full ninety-degree thrust, and in this way, preceded by his second erection of the morning, Mr. Blank exits the bathroom, walks over to the bed, and climbs into the pajama bottoms that Anna stowed under the pillow. Mr. Bigshot has already begun to shrink by the time the old man pushes his