Contra-Fiction
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                                       CONTRA-FICTION

  The Book is finished and The Book goes on.  It existed before it was written, waiting for 
its time.  The first author was its medium, his life its living page.  He found it in the 
darkness, he found it in his mind.  It was Outside and non-existent but moved behind his 
eyes.  Without his hand it could not be but once it was it moved at its own commands.
  Yellow-beak paused from its high-pitched chant.  Do you like that? it asked, earnestly, 
querulously.
  The author stroked his half-shaven chin - Maybe, maybe.  It’ll mean another visitation 
from Hilaricon.
  Hilarius, the bird intervened.  I wasn’t trying to be funny, its scribe protested.  His 
name, defended Yellow-beak, His full name.
  Pedant, muttered scriptor.  He was uneasy, he said, about the contradictions, take the 
interview with the ghost, the logic’s full of holes - he calls death permanent then talks of 
fading spectres, they acknowledge The Book is closed then create another page.
  Contradiction is the fact of fiction, the bird maintained.
  The writer looked about his poor kingdom, his book crammed, paper-strewn little room, 
his ill-comforting domain.  What about the punctuation, he spoke out to the air.
  Punctuation varies between episodes to sidestep authority and functions as a metonym 
for creative liberty, quoted and jingled the feathered theorist.
  It leaves me open to attack, his maker complained.
  The bird told its author something secret.  Then something else again.  I see, but there’s 
still the contradictions, a thoughtful writer pondered.
  Yellow-beak faded on the slow moving air, its ghostly outline lingering in the mid-
morning sun.  I  breathed deeply, tasting the moment, my solitude, my life.
  Then the beak re-appeared.  It told another story.
What? - I cried - How old?
  The bird regained its form then flew about my head four times.
  This isn’t real, I shouted as I disappeared.