A.W.I.A, Part 3: The interview continues

Well, you know how this all started, and what happened next. When I laughed and then told the man who was supposed to be a doctor that I wasn't laughing at anything, he sighed as if my answer made him tired. "All right. What did you mean when you said I was speaking to you in riddles?"

Oh, no, we weren't going to do that. But how to get out of it? At first I didn't answer at all. Then I said, "I don't remember."

"You don't remember what you said just a minute ago?"

Was this evidence that would be counted against me, too? What was the right answer?

"I remember saying so," I said. "But I don't remember what I meant."

"Look," he said, "if you don't remember what you meant," and he emphasized remember in a particular way which told me quite clearly he did not believe me, "Why don't you just tell me what you suppose you might have meant by saying such a thing?"

"Well," I said. Then I stopped. There was a way this question could trip me up, but I didn't see how. "I guess I meant that you were speaking enigmatically." He didn't move or give any other sign he'd heard me, just kept watching.

"Cryptically." No response.

"In ciphers."

Still no response for a moment, then he shook his head the way you might if a fly was buzzing around. "I understand what enigmatically means," he told me. "Allow me to ask my question again."

I waited. Would he repeat himself to see if I changed my story? He took a deep breath, then said, "I said, people who tell stories with missing parts, in my experiences, usually constitute the missing parts themselves."

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A.W.I.A, Part 2: The Interview

As I was saying, the man who claimed to be a doctor but was not like any doctor I had ever seen said, "But the problem is you are telling me a broken story. Your story does not make sense."

And I said I couldn't believe it. This was the problem? They were keeping me here for being a lousy writer?

But when I said that, he said something strange: "When people tell stories with missing parts, they--their behavior and actions--are usually themselves the missing parts."

Now he was speaking in riddles, but I knew enough to understand that he was accusing me of something, saying that I was responsible for something, and I was withholding it.

I did not let on that I understood that much, however, because I knew that the appearance that I understood his accusation would amount to a confession.

"I do not understand when you speak to me in riddles," I said.

"Did I speak to you in a riddle?" he said.

"You did," I said. "You most certainly did." Immediately I regretted adding the second part: I did not wish to be too assertive, as he might see that as a statement of weakness. To temper the assertion in the last sentence, I said again (but more softly, as if I were merely clarifying, rather than insisting), "You did speak to me in a riddle." Then I became silent.

He watched me. I watched him watch me. Then I became aware that my watching him might seem like a challenge. I thought about looking away, but wouldn't that seem like a confession of some kind, too? When two starving dogs encounter each other, the first to look away is likely to become dinner for the second, isn't he? Rather than look away, I changed my focus to take in all of him, and, once I saw him, I understood his angle.

His posture gave away his hope that I would give something away; that was obvious, and would have been a joke if I were not more or less his prisoner. Still, I laughed to myself.

"What's funny?" He asked.
"Nothing," I said.

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About Where I Am, Part 1: I Wasn't Doing Anything.

I wasn't doing anything when they came to get me. I was in my home, minding my own business, quiet, non-intrusive, all the things they say they like someone to be, and they came, and took me away, and brought me here.

Then I had to talk for the longest time to this man who was trying to prove certain things about me, certain things that are not true, that I have shown before to be untrue, but they weren't interested in that, not at all.

After a while, the man, who claimed to be a doctor but who is not like any doctor I have ever seen, because he is utterly without compassion, for one thing, said, "But the problem is you are telling me a broken story. Your story does not make sense."

I could not believe it. This was the problem? In other words, they were holding me against my will for being a lousy writer?

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