The Story of The
[Editor’s note: There is no story here and it is not clear why it was written. Perhaps it was an experiment in automatic writing. In any case, it has been annotated for the reader.]
I will tell you a story, the story of The. Oh, it’s only a story, reader, yes only a story, it’s says so in the title, let it come and let it go; yes, you know the creature demands the distinction be made between itself and any account of it that we are to give. Creature, being, entity; creature implies life, life implies death, and it never dies, can never die, and so it cannot live. The thing, The. But in any case, The demands, the title of the story must let the reader know that it is but a story and not the thing itself. On that it is insistent. Those are the terms of the bargain. But what is this thing, The? It is not the mere word, not in English nor any other language, no matter of human cognition or the human tongue. Less than a shadow on the wall, the word, the word, yes that1 word, there again. Some languages have no name at all for the thing The, perhaps a wiser course of action than taken by our own. Neither is it, per se, the bare concept expressed by the word. Definiteness, specificity, distinction.2 Those are as a wake behind it as it moves, but it is always moving, and everywhere, and forever at all times throughout the whole of time. The very real thing, the thing which exists in this world and all others, not physical but greater than physical. More real than the real.
It takes over a person sometimes, The. Overwhelms them and possesses them. It has been known to happen, here and there, though the specifics—oh how quaint in these circumstances!—seem hard to equate with either quality or quantity. It can only be said that at sometime or another, some person or another, will become obsessed with The, and everything will come back to The. But let us return to The.3
Take, for instance, an apple and the apple. An apple is an apple. The apple. Oh, it could be this apple, if you were here to see an apple in my hand, or it could be the concept of apples in general, all apples, the idea of apple-kind, or apple-ness, or the apple. The Garden of Eden, the serpent, the Tree of Knowledge, the apple of Adam and Eve. What makes it that apple and not another? The wills it so. How did I come to mean that apple and not another? The caused it to be. How did you come to know it as that apple and not another? Ah, The is there with you, too. The is everywhere and nowhere, has been and has not been, shall and shall not be. Before mankind first dreamt of gods, The was, and when the universe goes cold and dark, The shall be.
What does The look like? Oh, that doesn’t matter! Perhaps I should say that it is beyond human comprehension, lest I risk ruining the tale5 with description that underwhelms. Or perhaps I could lie, and say it looks a certain way, a way I hope to be suitably impressive, like Trogool or the Lovecraftian Great Old Ones, something outlandish and bizarre. Not a lie, no—say a metaphor. You the reader would know it is only an attempt to convey what is too much. No, I would prefer another lie, the more comforting lie.6 You wouldn’t understand. No one could understand. Or, yes, I will admit the possibility, though it pains me, maybe it is that there is no such creature after all and it is merely a word, the word the, a mere word that is repeated for some effect or another, or no effect at all. Maybe this has all been an attempt to concoct some semblance of meaning where no meaning is or could be. Could it really be as pointless as it seems? Perhaps there is a purpose but not a meaning. Might we all be so lucky as that!
If that’s so... Did I lie, or have I broken the bargain made between us? If I lied, it must be that I am a liar. I wouldn’t mind it so much; would you hold that against me, if the story were true?7
The Greek words ὁ, ἡ, τό (ho, hē, tó), "the" came from the demonstrative pronoun. That for the. That for The. This strikes me as academic, but The wishes it known, and I am to be its amanuensis.↩
You have, no doubt, been spared a pseudo-philosophical digression about the nature of definiteness. Rejoice and take heart, dear reader.↩
Yes. What are we getting at with all this blathering? What is the point of all this about The, the point of all the The, the point of this story which is not a story, of stories which are not stories?↩
The author has gotten distracted watching an episode of Remington Steele.↩
I did say it was a story, didn’t I? I could have sworn I said so. And yet what story have I told, here or elsewhere? Were I a better storyteller, I might have really had something here, might’nt I? A real story with a hero(ine) and a villain, compelling, emotional, a tale to relate, of a monstrous being, The, and the profound encounter with our hero(ine). Were I a better storyteller.↩
All storytellers are liars. The good storytellers are simply the better liars.↩
But I admit that none of it was true. It is a story after all and I am free to admit whatever I like. Admission is free, and an admission means nothing.↩