Archive > Vol. X no. Z

Philip Gross

The Invention

Some things barely need to be invented. They already want to be. Take this one, waiting, down a long white corridor that smells of thought, of chalk, of high ideas, not explosives, not of sweat and certainly not burning. Possibly the fizz of strip lights on late, or is it a fly trapped in the plastic hood above a desk with some monk of ideas at prayer. Some tick-bite of a problem itching. Something is waiting, and for us, because if not for us, then who first, who worse... It is waiting down a corridor of ink marks almost like the ones we write in, send our love in, tot up groceries — at the end of a long dry white equation and how can we not try every door? Because here, at last, behind the screen, it sits, the sweet solution, smiling. Forget everything that came before.