======================================================================
CHAPTER I
======================================================================

Hello World!

======================================================================
CHAPTER II
======================================================================

Here I am, this is my story.

- But where does it begin?

My story begins, like that of Tristram Shandy, with an ejaculation and
an insemination, unless with an ovulation, occurring some time in the
autumn of 1715. I do think of these events as so pivotal as did
Tristram, nor do I find such rich comedic narrative, but there it
is. [1]

And so here I am, in this little torus of now, dancing on the point of
a needle of this single instance of time, a single central pixel of
this next period...

- Did you see it? It's gone already!

...stretching away from me are the endless fractals and possibilities,
the permutations of a timeline: shall I or shall I not?  Do I dare?
Let's wedge in a word 'liminal' and maybe 'chthonic', the rhizomatic
interactions of chance and fate: the future. Nothing new there! It
seems like we haven't got a clue. But what of the past? I am imagining
that something similar is happening. Standing still on this tiny pixel
of 'now', if I look backwards there is the same chaos as looking
forwards: there are so many possibilities, so many timelines!

As I say, I was born in 1716. I am over 300 years old! I was also,
more mundanely, born shortly before JFK had his final moment on the
worldstage in Dallas.

Here is a prosepoem:

My father was a farmer, my grandfather a teacher, my great-grandfather
a doctor. I am a jellyfish, washed up on tatty urban beach, watching
the rise and fall of the tide but never quite managing to reach the
ocean: with one tentacle I snag a coffee which, at least if it doesn't
bring clarity, dulls the early morning ache.

I am lonely, stuck in this thin slice of time. All around me the
partying crowds move, ethereal togetherness flowing between them, the
others, their laughter washing over me in waves. I don't much enjoy it
but here I am: I've got used to my life and it has a certain comfort,
I get to watch a lot and I'm generally left alone, judged as unsavoury
protoplasm loaded with venoms of unknown consequence.

*

There is nothing but reading: when the comfort and security are
assured, the food on the table, the sleeping-pad private and dry,
there is only reading, the archeology of texts, an on-going linguistic
refinement. Before wrestling with the quiddity of things, their
whatness, it is necessary to become acquainted with /le mot/ quiddity,
its precedence, usage and intertextual nuances. The anxiety of
influence, I think someone once said. Agenbite.

The brittle lens at the mouth of the cave, terrifyingly fragile, it's
distortions so familiar and reassuring, sweet lullabies, so that as
the cracks appear I am left clutching for meaning, squeezing tightly
my empty cup, hoping for just one more sip of re-assurance.

[1] gopher://dante.pglaf.org:70/0/3/9/2/7/39270/39270-0.txt Tristram
Shandy, on gopher: Sterne for King!

======================================================================
CHAPTER II
======================================================================

Who the fuck am I? I seek to verify my identity, unredeemed TYPE 4.