...of annihilation

There has been a mistake, Genesis. In my enthusiasm to put the novel together, the chapters have become shuffled. Now that I think about it, I might have had some ulterior motive. Perhaps my hatred for Muniyandi and my love for Misra are responsible; perhaps I've subconsciously moved Misra ahead and shoved Muniyandi to the background. What should have come later came in the beginning, and pushed what should have been the beginning into the future. How do I escape from this confusion of time? Costa Rica's Maria Fernandez de Tinoco says the past is getting erased; written words are rubbed out again and again and reduced to nothingness. Like ink on a blotting paper, the past dissipates from the pages of my memory. I return to the nothingness with no recollections. The past has pushed me aside and gone into hiding.

Still, I think a moment may come when I will be able to capture the past. That moment may arrive at any time, Genny - perhaps even as you are reading this sentence. And at that instant only you and this text will remain; I, who wrote it at time zero, will no longer be there. The silent space of death will have sucked me in. I will have sunk into the bottomless pit of the past. The words will cease to be mine, and will belong only to the text. My own "I" will be erased, and the "I" of the text will be all that remains of my existence. At that moment, the text will seem as if it exists in a present - but it will only seem so. The residue of the past -

[Zero Degree, Nivedita, C.]