I'd gotten home from a party and was reading Foucault's "What Is an Author?" to teach to my intro to literary studies class, when I got a text message from a friend about how David Foster Wallace had hanged himself. Caught me completely off guard. And I was also caught off guard about how sad I was (and am) about it. He'd been teaching at Pomona, but he got there after I graduated, so I've never met him. But I admire his work a lot. A lot. I've been teaching two of his very short stories ("Incarnations of Burned Children" and "Forever Overhead") in that same class.

Very weird, very sad.

Forever below is rough deck, snacks, thin metal music, down where you once used to be; the line is solid and has no reverse gear; and the water, of course, is only soft when you're inside it. Look down. Now it moves in the sun, full of hard coins of light that shimmer red as they stretch away into a mist that is your own sweet salt. The coins crack into new moons, long shards of light from the hearts of sad stars. The square tank is a cold blue sheet. Cold is just a kind of hard. A kind of blind. You have been taken off guard. Happy Birthday. Did you think it over. Yes and no. Hey kid.

Two black spots, violence, and disappear into a well of time. Height is not the problem. It all changes when you get back down. When you hit, with your weight.

So which is the lie? Hard or soft? Silence or time?

The lie is that it's one or the other. A still, floating bee is moving faster than it can think. From overhead the sweetness drives it crazy.

The board will nod and you will go, and eyes of skin can cross blind into a cloud-blotched sky, punctured light emptying behind sharp stone that is forever. That is forever. Step into the skin and disappear.

Hello.

I've done it! I've gone public.

www.enablingfiction.com

I'll definitely keep this livejournal as a private (friends-only) blog, but for now, look for me under my new domain name!