A NOVEL OF FLOATING WORDS
Just my luck, on the short ferry crossing from Dover to Calais, to find myself sitting next to the eminent professor of literary extremism, Zazzo Thiim.
He had just conducted a short tour of Iceland in which he had expanded on the theory that Charles Dickens was obsessed with halibut. (Conclusion: he wasn’t.) He was eager to know what thought, not only of this, but other matters.
“Rogue writers”, he said, eventually. Leave clues everywhere”
I asked him what he meant. I knew he was trying to be enigmatic, but a part of me was genuinely interested
“Writers”, he said, “Have gone underground. They are fed up of seeing their works in print. The proliferation of desktop publishing, and the general cheapening of literature, mean that the whole process is dissatisfying. Yet they still feel the urge to write! Not only that, but free expression is being held back by the constraints of grammar, linear narratives, and of paragraphs. The rogue writer is the lone assassin of the literary world, yet his influence is all-encompassing.” The more Zazzo Thim spoke, the more enthusiastic and wild his gestures.
Indeed, his bony, skeletal hands perfected aerial acrobatics above the table which, as the ferry began to pull away from the dock, shook and shuddered.
“Rogue writers”, he continued, “Make novels of the world around us. We are in a novel right now – you and me. This whole ferry is one, big, gigantic novel.
I wanted to edge away from the aged Professor, but my curiosity was aroused. “But what of words?’, I asked, “And sentence structure?”
‘Pah!’, he spat. “Sentence structure is dead. Grammar dead. All we have left are words, random, scattered words. Look”, he said, pointing to the wall. “There’s two of them, now”.
“Fire exit”, I read
“Yes! Gosh! Yes, you see? How exciting! ‘Fire exit! The man is a genius!”
“If all the words on this ship”, I told the Professor, “Are part of a gigantic, free-form, non-linear novel, then the words ‘fire exit’ must appear an awful lot”.
“Seemingly”, Zazzo Thiim replied. “A recurring theme, you might say, a motif, such as would have been used in the operas of Wagner, or the poetry of Kipling. ‘Fire exit is such an emotive phrase, it conjures up images of security, panic, safety, the eternal war of the generations. Look at the green sign it is painted on -does it not recall the rolling hills of Ireland, the deep, deep green of the Schwarzewalde?’ Zazzo Thiim gets into his stride and begins to enthuse anew. “The man is a genius. You might even say he designed this whole ship, or rather, he wrote a novel which, unwillingly, became a cross-channel ferry. It’s all a figment of his imagination. Come with me”, he said, getting to his feet with the aid of a cane. “We shall promenade on deck, and admire the strength of his narrative”.
It was wet and cold outside. The painted metal deck was slippery and the aged Professor skidded the moment we stepped outside. Indeed, the ship seemed full of words, though none of them, as far as I could tell, formed the basis of a story, not even a haiku. “Muster station”, I read.
“Ooo!”, the Professor replied. “The dark railway terminus! What story awaits our
protagonist in the gothic city of Muster?”
“Staff only”, I read, on a cabin door.
“And who wouldn’t need a staff to walk in the dark woods around the ancient city? The brambles, you see..•
“What brambles?”
“The brambles hinted at in the green of the ‘fire exit sign”.
“Another one”; I said, pointing ahead. “See that? ‘Fire exit”.
“And indeed, he was”.
“Pardon?”
“Horatio Exit, the fearless warrior walking with his staff in the forests around Muster. He was fired”.
“What for?”
“He disobeyed the golden rule”.
“What golden rule?”, I asked, the incredulity of our conversation causing my voice to raise higher and higher.
“See there? In brass letters on a white background? Do not obstruct’. Horatio Exit obstructed the king. That’s why he got fired”.
“How do you know he was called Horatio?” I asked.
“This is a sea vessel, isn’t it?”
“Yes…
“Aren’t all mariners called ‘Horatio’?”
I let out a big, long sigh.
“The man is a genius”, the Professor said, under his breath. “A pure, intellectual genius”
We stopped where one of the lifeboats was tied. “And I suppose this”
I said, pointing to the sign which read ‘Maximum Capacity 32 people”, “Is a symbol of Horatio Exit’s frantic flight from the woods of Muster with thirty two disciples, each of whom, in preparation for the journey, ate as much as they possibly could before they escaped the soldiers of the Prinz von Muster who, enraged at Exit’s obstruction of the King, sent in his army to quell this army of brigands before they caused more troubles?”
“No”, the Professor replied. “It just means that the lifeboat can only carry thirty two people”.
I’d had enough. “I don’t believe a word of this”, I told the Professor. “I think you are a mad man, who has made up this whole game just so that you can talk to people, and carve out a name and a life for yourself when no-one else would, under normal circumstances, come anywhere near you. And it’s a travesty, an invasion of my time and my intellect even to contemplate talking to you. You have ruined my voyage, infected my head with your ill-thought philosophising which means less than that fag end over there, stubbed out by the railings”.
“Actually”, the old man replied, “That cigarette butt is enormously significant….’
“Enough! I don’t want to hear another word! I don’t believe any of this nonsense, and bid you good day”
At this, the old Professor looked down at the deck, and his shoulders slumped. A tear welled in his eye, which he wiped with the back of his bony hand, while the other gripped, ever-whitening, the handle of his cane.
“All I wanted”, he said, “Was to find the hidden beauty of life. I wanted to find the stories which hang around us, ethereal and ready for cultivation. I wanted to make life better, and open people’s eyes to the magic of literature. Is that too much to ask? Can we not all live side by side, elevated and enriched by words, by stories, by the whole merry, magniticent dance of narrative? There doesn’t even have to be a start, a middle or an end, just the words themselves, the glorious, beautiful words”.
“You are a fool”, I whispered.
I turned and left the old man.
Soon we were in Calais and I waited on the stairs to go back down to the car deck. My meeting with the Professor had left a strange taste in my mouth, a hint of the insanity which obviously clung to him like the clouds to a mountain. I wanted to get off the boat as quick as possible, get in my car, and drive down the smooth, French motorways into a sunnier, brighter world.
But then I looked up. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There ahead of me, on the wall, the same old green paint and the familiar font in white letters. Yet this sign was different, unnoticed, but different, as if its inventor had made a subtle joke, and had hidden it away from the world, for the proofreaders perhaps, or maybe it was a philosophical joke. The sign read:
‘Fire Exist.
Robert Garnham 