Compression
A fabulous compression. Everything fabulously compressed. Well, perhaps not everything. But something. Something compressed. Compressed absolutely.
But what if in fact it's being expanded and not compressed; that is to say there's no compression going on, no great whole being distilled to some precise and concise form, a form bursting at the seams with significance - you squeeze it and you're drenched with all this significance. And what kind of compression can be going on if I myself haven't the slightest idea of what it is
that is actually being compressed?
But perhaps if did know, then mightn't it be true there would be no such compression, no reduction to essence. All we'd have is some artificial construct, some ungainly contraption nailed together artlessly, and rather than placed discreetly in the corner hoping to attract noone's attention, there it is placed proudly out there in the centre, in the most splendidly prominent spot, and tied around the protruding and all too visible nails are ribbons no less - the whole thing proudly declaring, "Behold! I have simplified, yes, but not at the expense of truth or elegance!"
But give it a kick and the whole contraption falls to pieces, and that's exactly what should be done. What else should you do to a piece of shit with ribbons attached?
But you probably won't be too popular if you do administer the necessary kick. You may even be attacked by some of its admirers, some of whom were crawling around in the hopeless structure, blissful, feeling themselves defined and happily so by their inhabitation within its perimeters, its parameters. Can you really expect gratitude when you shatter the thing with one well aimed kick? Not really, no. You had better have something else to offer them quick or you don't know what they might do.
But now that it is shattered, perhaps you'll find, most likely, rather than going for you that they'll go scrabbling in the dirt, grabbing at the fragments, and out with their tools - their hammers and so on - and they're banging away, making a desperate racket, putting it all back together again, or if not quite it, something resembling it in its place, finally producing - what can you expect — something even more hopeless.
And now there stand before it, pleased and relieved, humble and proud. It's a testament to its permanence, its truth, that there it stands, again.
And so what do you do but up and deliver another kick, this time sending it surely beyond all repair.
But what if in fact it's being expanded and not compressed; that is to say there's no compression going on, no great whole being distilled to some precise and concise form, a form bursting at the seams with significance - you squeeze it and you're drenched with all this significance. And what kind of compression can be going on if I myself haven't the slightest idea of what it is
that is actually being compressed?
But perhaps if did know, then mightn't it be true there would be no such compression, no reduction to essence. All we'd have is some artificial construct, some ungainly contraption nailed together artlessly, and rather than placed discreetly in the corner hoping to attract noone's attention, there it is placed proudly out there in the centre, in the most splendidly prominent spot, and tied around the protruding and all too visible nails are ribbons no less - the whole thing proudly declaring, "Behold! I have simplified, yes, but not at the expense of truth or elegance!"
But give it a kick and the whole contraption falls to pieces, and that's exactly what should be done. What else should you do to a piece of shit with ribbons attached?
But you probably won't be too popular if you do administer the necessary kick. You may even be attacked by some of its admirers, some of whom were crawling around in the hopeless structure, blissful, feeling themselves defined and happily so by their inhabitation within its perimeters, its parameters. Can you really expect gratitude when you shatter the thing with one well aimed kick? Not really, no. You had better have something else to offer them quick or you don't know what they might do.
But now that it is shattered, perhaps you'll find, most likely, rather than going for you that they'll go scrabbling in the dirt, grabbing at the fragments, and out with their tools - their hammers and so on - and they're banging away, making a desperate racket, putting it all back together again, or if not quite it, something resembling it in its place, finally producing - what can you expect — something even more hopeless.
And now there stand before it, pleased and relieved, humble and proud. It's a testament to its permanence, its truth, that there it stands, again.
And so what do you do but up and deliver another kick, this time sending it surely beyond all repair.
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Other stories by Andrew Kenneally
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For once, trying to follow the logic in this:
A compression .. but what if .. there's no compression .. and (?) what kind of compression .. is actually being compressed .. but if [I] did know .. mightn't .. there be no such compression ..
conjunctions here imply an unreliable narrator at work
I just think the narrator isn't beginning from a position of some overseeing absolute knowledge; the writing happens as it happens. The writing is an investigation or exploration in the very act rather than the outpouring of some point clear in the narrator's mind.
But of course there is something of an overarching idea or starting-point & that is . . . though it's a good while since I wrote this . . . these 'compressions', intellectual constructs of imaginary certainty within which 'hopeless structures people crawl around blissful, feeling themselves defined and happily so by their inhabitation within its perimeters, its parameters' . . .
Though to stress again that while hopefully there is a unity to such a piece, from the first word I tend to have no idea where I'm going, I just start writing & see what comes out, & out it comes generally in one long thread.