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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Bathroom Monologue: Fingernails Keep Growing
There were many theories for why fingernails kept growing after death. He believed it was of busy fingers. They did so much on reflex; you never thought to make the last digit on your pinky curl around the glass and yet they did. In his case, thirty years and never a day of writers block. In his case, thirty years of having a few ideas and thinking none of them through before sitting down to the typewriter. His hands knew how to do things his head was too dumb to accomplish, as exhibited on umpteen embarrassing book tours. He had his agent bury him with a typewriter and a stack of paper to test the theory. A month later his coffin was dug up and the agent found a few pages of crumpled up notes, three pages that were apparently false starts, and a few fading lines complaining about an old ribbon.
Hair does too, but of course, we know that hair is responsible for drawing and painting skills. I wonder what last-minute wonders we may have milked from the likes of Shakespeare and Yeats, Leonardo and Picasso, had we only known these facts sooner.
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