The Fourth Link

September second. It started with a single sentence in the book I've been reading, a throwaway clause about how Venetian endpapers were made, and by eleven-thirty I had four browser tabs open, one printed article on the kitchen table, and a paperback with a receipt shoved in as a bookmark at the relevant page. That is the thing about a rabbit hole: the entrance is always a single sentence that sounds like a fact but is actually a door.

I texted Simone the first link at eleven-forty. Then the second. Then a third because the third had a photograph I genuinely could not believe. The fourth I sent with absolutely no explanation, which I maintain was the right call. She showed up about twenty minutes later and stood at the kitchen table reading the printed article with the expression she usually reserves for shift reports that don't add up.

the face of someone who has found the thread and will not let go

We stayed at the table until past midnight going back and forth about something neither of us actually looked up until about thirty minutes in, at which point it turned out we were both slightly wrong in different directions, which felt appropriate. The book is still open on the table. The printed pages are still there. Gerald's vine is doing its thing in the background, completely indifferent to the history of marbling guilds, as he should be.

she received the fourth link. this is her face.

I don't have a conclusion. The conclusion is that the book has a bibliography and the bibliography has seventeen entries and I have already looked up four of them. Tuesday.