Sometimes you follow a phrase or an image about for a while and it yields something; it is quite like fishing. Eventually you will catch something. Just watch the ripples on the surface of your conscious and unconscious mind. Most writing comes from patient watching, first the surface and then what lies beneath. Virginia Woolf taught me this. Sometimes what we catch is not what we wished for, but it is there, underneath the waves. Lying is catching. It begins with a half-truth, or a partly tethered fact; or a statement rushed out without reflection which soon becomes a product sold upon the glistening surface which we consume because it sounds right to our eyes and ears so attune to quick facility. And so, we find our answer, and the answer is easy for now, while the monsters continue to circle.
Monsters from the Deep
Like most children, Edith had been taught from an early age that lying is not done, but like most children she had learned lying is convenient when the truth becomes too hard. Most people lie to themselves about matters that reach deeply; that require a fork and a spade or a net to carry away. Monsters from the deep. We push those down and we are angry with anyone who feeds them for they bite. It is easier to lie in the moment when facts themselves are in question. When questions are the monsters that flicker and turn inside our head. Edith did not remember what she had said to Mr. Jarvis that evening or any other; there were no circumstances to cling to because Edith had sunk them all beneath the waves. Her small raft had disappeared and only an overwhelming sense of shame remained, her splintering debris. Monsters from the deep were rising and showing their fishy heads and tails. Edith saw their fishy eyes and felt sick. Eyes roaming through the darkness, eyes open beneath the waves, red and raw with wondering what now, Edith, what next? (FROM POND LIFE, A STORY OF BIOGRAPHICAL EXTINCTION)