William Fuller

THE GARDEN

In the Servicing Unit all desks face outward in a circle which has 
been contrived with no interior. It sits on a kind of pinwheel and 
spins. Thousands of figures are daily computed to justify it. 
Assignments are made, people move briskly back and forth following the 
rhythms of demand. Transactions are contemplated, initiated, executed. 
I appear at the request of the village, with my service requirements. 
These are laid out and anatomized by the occupants of the outermost 
desks. Occasionally someone turns toward a screen full of whirling 
lines and numbers. I close my eyes and listen to the white noise of 
the Unit. Random statements anchor the deadspace:'You pay for things 
you can't reach for.' 'A terrible incision has occurred.'

Finally I glance up to see a piece of paper on which my requirements 
have been analyzed. It says: 'Material needed: a clear plastic bag.'



SCREEN MEMORIES DOCKET

...let's consider who it was that dreamed it all

Will it actually work? This question has been deferred long enough. 
The Recalculation Assistance Committee has reviewed and standardized 
potential responses (within a specific range of centralized input) and 
will be offering its executive abstract. In the meantime, staff is 
asked to recall section 1.03 of the New Mission Statement, "we intend 
to work with clients whose values we support." Other new business 
concerned the post requests submitted by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who 
elegized the death of Hands-On Training, which, he concluded wistfully, 
"offers access to low cost techniques for the enhancement of 
reputations." The Committee was impressed. Immediately a vote was 
taken, phantoms abstaining. It was resolved that all details be 
transferred directly to the Screen Memories Docket for interplay and 
aporia.

Later, trolling off-site, they practised their auto-sums. The hope for 
a successful Redesign had come down to Sublime Conceptions versus 
putting money to work. "It looks like a wall," Lord Herbert said. But 
the expression in his voice was spurious.



BRUISED WINE

The rest of the treatise is wanting 
and I say 'Bank!' 
seeing into the world 
for the first time-- 
Do we confess 
it tastes like sugar 
within this idea 
incorruptible 
as it proceeds 
darker and drier 
on every leaf 
irreducible 
within its orbit 
all future events 
to be disputed 
by hands brushing 
the sharp boundary 
between propositions 
rising from the center 
of the earth 
now clings to walls?