Between Catch 22 and the End of the Affair

The writer hesitated, searching for the right words.

“You want me to give you an idea?” suggested his fiancée, somewhat impatiently, from the sofa.

“You know how every pearl starts with a grain of sand?” said the writer. “I want you to give me that grain of sand. A phrase, or just four words. Five words.”

“A phrase of five words?”

“Yes.”

She reflected for the briefest of moments before offering four words: “She hated his guts.”

He typed it out onto the screen.

“That’s only four words,” he said.

“She hated his fucking guts.”

He had been hoping for something more concrete. A refrigerator. An elephant. An escape.

“That’s terrible,” he said after a pause. He grabbed Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon from the bookcase and handed it to her. “Here.”

“Something random?” she said.

“Page two-hundred and thirty.” And then, after a moment’s thought, he added: “Two. Left hand page. Third complete sentence.”

He waited while she found it. It didn’t take long.

“He is shivering with fear and his face is whiter than whitewash,” came the line.

“That’s not much better,” he said, putting the book back on the shelf, between Catch 22 and The End of the Affair.