An excerpt from the novel
by Mark Swartz

Friday 18 November
Eve has been overworked and inhospitable, just like the Mary that George Bailey never married. Muscles clench in her temples when she tries to smile. She seems close to the edge. How would a librarian act during a nervous breakdown? Would she remember to remain quiet? Don't be afraid, Eve, it's the easiest thing in the world. Think of it as accepting a dare. I dare you to laugh out loud for no reason at all. Now, I dare you to topple that stack of books. I double dare you to lose your mind.

Saturday 19 November
Product engineers have developed electronic ringers to the point where they are no longer so distinguishable from real bells. The phone in the apartment upstairs has been ringing all evening long. I am sure that I hear movement up there as well. I don't think that Mrs. Bryars is out at all. She just isn't answering the phone. Whoever is calling, probably Mr. Bryars, who moved out seven years ago, knows that she is home, and he is sitting in a room somewhere, the receiver to his ear, listening to the ringing and picturing her sitting by the phone listening to the ringing. He imagines that listening to the same sound (not quite but almost) brings them together in a way that words failed to. There is a ring and then silence, a ring and then silence. A conversation of two words. The ring is "please" and the silence is "no." Puh-lease. No. Puh-lease. No. Puh-lease. Maybe he thinks he is getting somewhere with her. That eventually his pleas will be heard and she will pick up the phone and say, "Okay."

Sunday 20 November
I left grad school because I was sick of adhering to the syllabi my professors distributed at the beginning of a quarter. I'd look over the list of titles and page ranges, resenting the fact that my reading for the next 10 weeks was scheduled in advance by someone I hardly knew. Reading for me is a very personal decision comprised of whims, predispositions, and circumstances that I myself can't always pin down, and I didn't have any more confidence that Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche would suit me two months in the future than that a bagel, lox, and cream cheese would hit the spot the following Sunday morning. Sometimes the library's 1.6 million books paralyze me; I don't know where to start and would welcome the guidance of a more experienced scholar. Other times I can be very single-minded. For example, I know that tomorrow when the library doors open I will race in and head right for Capote's In Cold Blood, the criminal mind and its expression in literary form being a topic that concerns me lately.

Monday 21 November
Today I neared the counter to inform Eve that the men's room on the second floor was out of paper towels, but then I noticed her fingers. She was folding overdue notices, and I noticed how shiny her fingers were. Not greasy, but almost plastic-coated, laminated, like everything else in that place. I watched her as she pushed the overdue notices to one side and put her hands together‹not in prayer, but so that the fingertips of one hand were just touching the fingertips of the other hand. I knew that if she concentrated, she could feel her blood pulsating, and I was struck dumb by the idea of its rhythm.
    "Yes?" she said, not smiling, but not impatiently.
    "I'm sorry."
    "You look lost."
    "No I don't," I said. I tried to laugh but could not. I don't know why I contradicted her. I wasn't in a position to know how I looked. I took her honest solicitation as a rebuke and panicked. Lost? I should have said. Lost like the more than 150,000 books that were lost in the transition from the library on Randolph? At least I didn't say that.
    She picked up on my half-smile and saved the day. "That's good, because we wouldn't want to lose you."

Tuesday 22 November
If I read enough books I will come across justification for everything that occurs to me. Every student leaning over his books reads with one eye dutifully scanning for material related to the immediate task and one eye searching for assurance of his deepest convictions. The book that contains the most wisdom is the one that makes the most sense. The Talmud, that great how-to manual of ancient Babylon, instructs us to eat fish heads. "May it be your will, HaShem, our god and the god of our forefathers, that we be as the head and not the tail." I'll tell the fish monger they're for my cat. Now what's a good name for a cat?

Yah-weh
Marzipan
Karma
Ubu
Eve
Malloy
Tanya

Wednesday 23 November
This is the time of year when Americans are supposed to begin suffering the holidays. A blue Thanksgiving, a black Christmas, and a suicidal New Year's Eve live from Time Square with Dick Clark. I am an American, and that means that I am entitled to whatever armory I can stock and that I can't take responsibility for my actions. Am I blue? Ain't this Guns & Ammo telling you?
    This endeavor will take the form of art. I have an urge, not just to write incendiary prose or create a blazing spectacle, but to ignite, detonate, explode. In The Anarchist Cookbook, William Powell tells of "a friend who worked with demolitions in the Middle East, and he has told me on several occasions that an explosion for him was an experience very similar to a sexual orgasm." I've got a big woody for some hot flames, and I want to sublimate it into art. Lacking the necessary grudge to be a serial bomber, I would like to take all the time in the world preparing for the one-time-only event; but in the thriller tradition, there is a race afoot, so I can't wait too long. I am playing the Dennis Hopper role, the mad bomber with the oddly cogent sense of justice, but I am also Clint Eastwood. On the force they regard me as a straight shooter, but deep down I feel a kinship with the bomber and envy his charisma. My only weapon a pen. Will I write my way to reason? Can I come up with the precise combination of words and sentences to avert disaster before time runs out?

Thursday 24 November
The late twentieth century is crowded with such media-hungry terrorists as myself. I can't speak for any of the others‹we haven't yet held conventions‹but I am tired of terrorism being treated as a political strategy, when at the very least it is a complete political ideology, on a par with Libertarianism or Marxism. I would go further and say that it might also be considered a religion, whose gods are technology, power, and publicity. Like a religion, it requires discipline and self-sacrifice. Like a religion, simple statements of fact lurk behind bewildering arcana. Like a religion, everything depends on faith.
    For my personal use, I think that terrorism will best be defined as an artistic movement, a trend in creativity with progenitors, leaders, and marginal figures who make crucial contributions. Terrorism grew out of abstract expressionism and dadaism. Like the Helmites in Solomon Simon's tale, who caught a reflection of the moon in a tub of red borscht and convinced themselves they had captured the moon, the abstract expressionists made a few violent brushstrokes and thought they had captured the essence of destruction. They gestured bigger and more violently, swiping and stabbing at the canvas, dripping industrial paint like blood. Unfortunately, when blood dries, it loses its brilliance.

From Instant Karma, by Mark Swartz, City Lights Books, 2002.