1. The page waits, pretending to be blank. Is that its appeal, its
blankness? What else is this smooth and white, this terrifyingly
innocent? A snowfall, a glacier? It's a desert, totally arid, without
life. But people venture into such places. Why? To see how much they can
endure, how much dry light?
2. I've said the page is white, and it is: white as wedding dresses, rare whales, seagulls, angels, ice and death. Some say that like sunlight it contains all colours; others, that it's white becuase it's hot, it will burn out your optic nerves; that those who stare at the page too long go blind.
3. The page itself has no dimensions and no directions. There's no up or down except what you yourself mark, there's no thickness and weight but those you put there, north and south do not exist unless you're certain of them. The page is without vistas and without sounds, without centers or edges. Because of this you can become lost in it forever. Have you never seen the look of gratitude, the look of joy, on the faces of those who have managed to return from the page? Despite their faintness, their loss of blood, they fall on their knees, they push their hands into the earth, they clasp at the bodies of those they love, or, in a pinch, any bodies they can get, with an urgency unknown to those who have never experienced the full horror of a journey into the page
4. If you decide to enter the page, take a knife and some matches, and something that will float. Take something that you can hold onto, and a prism to split the light and a talisman that works, which should be hung on a chain around your neck: that's for getting back. It doesn't matter what kind of shoes, but your hands should be bare. You should never go into the page with gloves on. Such decisions, needless to say, should not be made lightly.
2. I've said the page is white, and it is: white as wedding dresses, rare whales, seagulls, angels, ice and death. Some say that like sunlight it contains all colours; others, that it's white becuase it's hot, it will burn out your optic nerves; that those who stare at the page too long go blind.
3. The page itself has no dimensions and no directions. There's no up or down except what you yourself mark, there's no thickness and weight but those you put there, north and south do not exist unless you're certain of them. The page is without vistas and without sounds, without centers or edges. Because of this you can become lost in it forever. Have you never seen the look of gratitude, the look of joy, on the faces of those who have managed to return from the page? Despite their faintness, their loss of blood, they fall on their knees, they push their hands into the earth, they clasp at the bodies of those they love, or, in a pinch, any bodies they can get, with an urgency unknown to those who have never experienced the full horror of a journey into the page
4. If you decide to enter the page, take a knife and some matches, and something that will float. Take something that you can hold onto, and a prism to split the light and a talisman that works, which should be hung on a chain around your neck: that's for getting back. It doesn't matter what kind of shoes, but your hands should be bare. You should never go into the page with gloves on. Such decisions, needless to say, should not be made lightly.
There
are those, of course, who enter the page without deciding, without
meaning to. Some of these have charmed lives and no difficulty, but most
never make it out at all. For them the page appears as a well, a lovely
pool in which they catch sight of a face, their own but better. These
unfortunates do not jump: rather they fall, and the page closes over
their heads without a sound, without a seam, and is immediately as whole
and empty, as glassy, as enticing as before.
5. The question about the page is: what is beneath it? It seems to only have two dimensions, you can pick it up and turn it over and the back is the same as the front. Nothing, you say, disappointed.
But you were looking in the wrong place, you were looking on the back instead of beneath. Beneath the page
is another story. Beneath the page is a story. Beneath the page is
everything that has ever happened, most of which you would rather not
hear about.
The
page is not a pool but a skin, a skin is there to hold in and it can
feel you touching it. Did you really think it would just lie there and
do nothing?
Touch
the page at your peril: it is you who are blank and innocent, not the
page. Nevertheless you want to know, nothing will stop you. You touch
the page, it's as if you've drawn a knife across it, the page has been
hurt now, a sinuous wound opens, a thin incision. Darkness wells
through.
Good Bones and Simple Murders
by Margaret Atwood.
by Margaret Atwood.
