The Shortest Page In The Case

Kindling · page 34 withdrawn

Page thirty four, my dear readers, is not an entry. It is a sentence, and then, underneath the sentence, in smaller writing, an apology for the sentence being so short. I do not remember which world I was on. I do not remember why I stopped there and did not go on to make it a proper entry with a Fun Fact and a disclaimer and all the rest of the furniture. I only have what is on the page, which is this:

The blind fish in the flooded temple still turn toward the door when it opens.

And under that, in the smaller hand: I am sorry this is so short. I looked at it again and there did not seem to be anything to add that would not make it worse.

He was right, whoever he was that day. There is nothing to add. I have tried, sitting here, to think of the Fun Fact that would have gone with it (Fun Blind Fish Fact: they cannot see the door either) and it is a bad joke and I know it is a bad joke while I am making it, which did not used to happen quite this fast.

Anyway. It is one sentence. It goes in the fire the way a sentence goes in a fire, which is to say all at once, no lingering, no second look, because there is nothing on the page to linger over that I have not already told you.

There. Page thirty four withdrawn.

That is the whole entry. I am aware it is the whole entry. Eighty six to go, and some of them will take longer than this took.