echo

In reading, it seems, we cannot find the writer, we cannot hear the author’s voice. If, like a hound digging frantically for bones, front paws churning the earth into showering clods, we toss words asunder, neurotically broadcasting text in all directions whilst conducting our search; if, like a blackbird, head cocked to one side listening for the worm,

hop, hop, stop, cock, hop, hop,

we listen for the scratch of words as they assemble into text, listen for the rustle of language, ache like an infant for the nursing tone we seek in the mother’s calming voice, how will we know when we’ve found it? What does the writer sound like? Thirsty for meaning we bend to drink from the stream, and like Narcissus, we fall in love with what we see there, we fall in love not with the writer (of course he is never there, so why bother looking?), we fall in love with our own reflection, we watch it glisten in links, we watch it unfold and shimmer in comments, and like those tracks crunched through the snow in the wild wood, we look back longingly at where we’ve trod. Like Echo, her love for narcissus spurned, pining for that which she never knew, until only her voice remained in the lonely glen; like Narcissus himself, too afraid to touch the water for fear of damaging what he saw there, our reader eventually dies of thirst, staring at his own reflection.

Keep reading, the writing will look after itself.