from part four of WILD METRICS
Every day the future comes nearer; every single day that passes, and they pass much more quickly now, it approaches; but it gets no clearer, no more decipherable than at the beginning – the beginning? – what I mean to say is, at the time when I was closer to the beginning, when my senses were more rudimentary. And now as I bring myself to write this, in many ways it gets more difficult, because I am no longer relying on those long-ago set-down accounts of what happened, and when, and wherefore, etc etc; no longer building on those familiar narratives but on the thin air of now. You know, like the cartoon character running from some assailant towards the cliff edge and continuing to run beyond, without noticing for a short while thereafter that there is nothing to support his pattering little feet until he looks down and then of course the shock of awareness, of seeing for the first time the yawning space beneath him, provokes his belated downfall. It’s a familiar trope, perhaps rather