The Waves Virginia Woolf

How tired I am of stories, how tired I am of phrases that come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground! Also, how I distrust neat designs of life that are drawn upon half sheets of notepaper. I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement. (p. 238)

I know what you mean, V. I know the shape of a book cracked open.

I'm using the word "heart" several times to classify this feeling, a feeling of dread and half-sleep: A heart drawn by thirsty horses through some arid place. A heart freshly pounded and wrapped at the meat-packing plant. A heart without a mouth.

And I know what you'll say. You'll say: but a heart doesn't need a mouth. Well, I say a heart must speak to itself every once in a while, on some summer night when there are no stars left.

But I don't regret what I said. Don't regret leaving you the way Rhonda left to follow some stone pillar. You see, the story folds neatly into a paper airplane. It catches in the branch of some gnawed off tree.

And our story? Well, that's a matter of paper pretending to be stone. A stone book, too heavy to haul around. I care and don't care at the same time because I'm reading The Waves. I'm thinking about the arc of time suspended over both of us. How people swell like wooden doors during the rainy season. How they bang their fists and wrap their hands and drink coffee during the long hours of night.

Life is pleasant; life is good; after Monday comes Tuesday, and Wednesday follows Tuesday. (271)