Book 15

We’re at the Somatic Public Library. Never mind how we got there or why. This is a detour of sorts from wherever we’ve been to wherever we might be headed next.

A book catches your eye:

You pick it up and thumb through it.

Wait, you might say, I’m confused. Wouldn’t this book, the one we’re in right now, be the fifteenth book?

“No,” I say as I page through some huge ass tome, “because I started it before this one.”

Oh, you go. So this one we’re in is book 16, then?

“No,” I go. “I already started that one, too. It’s this kina horrible piece of shit about this dude who is kind of a horrible piece of shit.”

You ask after the title.

“It’s called I Don’t Know Where This Goes.” I pause, then add, “It’s pretty literal, that title cos I have no idea where it fits into things. So maybe it’s not book sixteen? I dunno. I hate continuity. Plenty of great things have no continuity and they’re fine. Like The Simpson or Aeon Flux.”

You think whatever you think about that and say whatever you say.

In any case, I respond, “If people like continuity that’s fine. I’m not trying to take anything from anyone. I simply want to make a work that is not enslaved by it. That’s all.”

I dig around in my satchel and retrieve some ciggies and my old Zippo. It makes that very distinct clinking sound when I flip it open, and you can smell the leaky lighter fluid.

I light up, take a drag, then say, “Life isn’t really about continuity. It’s more accurately about people’s disappointment over a lack of continuity and our feeble attempts to ensure it.”

If you are a clever fox, you recall the meaning of Santāna, and say, But doesn’t Santāna mean continuity?

Should you say that, I will grin and look at you. If  we are lovers, I will kiss you, passionately.

A libraian appears. She looks cute, I think, in her Mary Jane Docs and heavy-framed glasses. She has sleeves of tats on both arms.

“Dude, you can’t smoke here,” she says.

“Sorry,” I say, and stub it out against the bottom of my shoe.

“Thanks,” she says, then leaves.

I close the tome and with some effort heave it aside, snatch the paperback from your hand.

“So this is book fifteen. It really is one of my faves,” I say as I rifle through it.

I stop flipping pages, and read for a second. “This one is going to be important. The one about Charlee.”

I read a few more pages, then toss it back to you. “Dee’s origin is in there, too. But we’re kina incorporating that into this book you and I are in so. No need to read that now, I don’t guess.”

You ask if it’s the same in both books.

“Of course not,” I say. “I’m not going to make folks read the same thing twice. How dreadful a notion!”

If you know me well, it’s clear I’m joking. If not, then you might not be sure.

“Book fifteen is a huge one because Tee is quite old at that point and has been through some kind of cataclysm. They meet up with Charlee in this town called Lydia, and there are all these other characters in different places and times within the Secretsverse that are sort of working together on the plot but don’t know it. It’s a neat idea, I think. Fun to contemplate.”

You might go, Wait, I thought you were Tee.

“I am.”

If you’re confused, I look at you and say, “Try to keep up. It’s not that hard. I’m me. I’m Tee. I’m Teresa. I’m Tracy. They’re all me, m’kay?”

You might ask, What about Dee, Dorian, and Knot? in which case, I just smile.

“So the book takes place sometime after where we are, sometime we haven’t gotten to yet,” I say.

But we will get there? you ask.

I shrug. “How should I know? Depends on what you read and the order in which you read it.”

You can probably draw an inference from that and say: So the order in which I read your work is the actual continuity?

“For you it is, yeah. For me, it’s the order in which I write it. Or, you know—think of it, write it down, forget it, rewrite it, remember forgetting it. That kind of thing.”

But you said Tee is old, you might say.

I nod at the paperback and say, “In that one I am, yeah.”

But how do you know what you will be like when you’re old? you may wonder.

“I don’t, babe. It’s fiction.”

Play procedures

• Make a list of all the chapters of mine you have read in the order in which you read them. Include rereads, if you indulge in such debauchery. Or fuck the whole thing and just let your mind do the work effortlessly. Player’s choice.
• If you’ve read the Charlee chapter in draft, tell me what you think of it. You can also journal about Charlee. Decide what you think of her, what you think her motivations are, and what she might do in the rest of the novel. Should you do this, you can count Charlee as a companion when she shows up in this novel we’re in now; or, you may switch to playing Charlee from the character you’re currently reading as.
• You may count the Somatic Public Library as a safe place and add it to your list.
• You can add No One Ever Knows Why and I Don’t Know Where This Goes to your inventory, but you must write it on your sheet or in your journal. As always, if it’s not written down, you don’t have it.
• If you and I are lovers, you know I especially like making out in libraries, so we can do that now, if you want. I’m down for whatever, babe.