the black hole
I am learning to divine from the Maya calendar, a little. 10 September 1978 equals 12 Mol 2 Cawuk. A child born on Cawuk will have a troubled and harassed (mulom kuchum) life full of punishment from the ancestors.
I tell myself (and in general I believe) that I keep writing because it's the only bridge out of solitude, that a finished book is a sort of escape pod that you send spinning into the void. Its shape must be geometrically perfect, or nearly so—otherwise it won't survive the journey. Where it lands is not the point. I like to think that even if no word of mine ever encounters the printing press, their existence will still make a ripple in the universe, even as a stack of unread manuscripts in the basement. I have engendered them, and they have escaped the event horizon of myself. And the hollow of night will not swallow them. And the hollow of night will not swallow me.
