Stuck Abecedarian

It was drenched green. The gazetteer absconded with verisimilitude and we were left in this wasteland clenching our drooping marigolds. The villain left vanilla footprints and the abecedarian was stuck on E. Something sticky dripped down our hot backs and commingled, congealed, with our sweat. We were a prize for the ants and bees, but they all disappeared earlier than expected during the sixth extinction. What did you call this again? This slow molasses death spiral? You had a term for it that I thought was so appropriate, but I forgot it. In the end what difference did it make? You said it made none.

“Gertrude Stein said, ‘I write for myself and strangers,’ and then eventually she said that she wrote only for herself. I think she should have taken one further step. You don’t write for anybody … You are advancing an art—the art. That is what you are trying to do.”

— William H. Gass / The Paris Review, interview