This is a page about nothing. Fair warning.
I had to repair a Voltaire
& I’m waiting on some glue to dry.
I’ve been reading so profoundly furiously
It’s beginning to come apart
And I have to return it to the shelf tomorrow without a trace of mishandling, no sign of such wear & tear. Honest, I usually have such a light, careful touch. I don’t want to disappoint its owner. I scoop the cat turds twice a day because I know cats will tattle.
I’m housesitting. I’m petsitting. Two bedroom, three bath, a dog, a cat (Happy Cat Day by the way.), and a grand library.
I could do this full time.
I would like to declare my profession.
I may have found a new vocation or two.
I can watch the house, get the garbage out to the curb, clean, take care of your pets, make the neighbors laugh, and repair your books.
And for an extra fee: paint a room or two, perform an oil change (fees vary by make & model, no exotics exc. Italian with Agip—I’ve acquired the taste), mend a fence, or do general yard work.
This I could do. All while you’re away on your own vacation. Return home to a clean, well-stocked house.
I’m not even supposed to be here, I’m not even writing anybody special today. I’m just staying loose, my page to ten per day. I’m on vacation. Or holiday. Anyway, I’m vacating my post.
Back to that glue on the 1927 volume of Voltaire… The spine’s a bit manky but its integrity is hanging in there. It’s the spine’s outer cloth cover, actually, that’s peeling off. It drapes down over my hand while I’m reading. There may be a proper term for the thing but I don’t have a bookbinder’s encyclopedia or glossary. Usually I use a handkerchief while reading such a fragile piece. I forgot myself. If I were home I’d have my tools and the proper glue. Even a needle and thread. But out here on the road I must make do. I travel light so I always have a handkerchief, but I am without my sewing kit.
The roller on my Corona’s paper bail just ran over an inchworm. Or rather a tiny caterpillar on a silk string. If an inchworm’s an inch then this was a millimeter-&-a-half worm. Poor thing. It had just climbed up on the rubber roller when it got rolled near the margin right where the bell rings. There’s evidence of the tragedy there on the page. A tiny body outlined by a little grease mark. I wonder what it would have become. A butterfly? A moth? I wonder what it would have done. I may have seen its ancestor yesterday, a swallowtail in flight between the wildflowers and the bush. How many butterflies can a writer save? How many does writing so flatly smoosh?
Who cares?
The birds probably would have found it. Not today though. This morning Candices was rolling earlier than the earliest bird and she ate it for breakfast.
Poor little worm, stretching and bunching, bunching and stretching along, flattened into pulp, a short life all for naught, for I sat down to write a page about nothing.
The glue should be almost dry enough to go back to reading. But I lost my spot. My bookmark was stuck on Scarmentado… “‘Alas!’ said I, ‘these people are nevertheless born with a gentle disposition. What can have them drawn so far from their natural character? They joke and keep holy days. Happy the time when they shall do nothing but joke!’”
Only one or two cicadas today found that funny. All the other wild noise is of the grasshoppers and crickets. Nothing. No remorse. No sympathy for the worm.
See, a page about nothing.