'Wuthering Heights: Prologue - A Pub in Dublin', by D.M. Rice
Wuthering Heights is an experimental redaction in the style of the William Burroughs cut ups. The source texts are The Odyssey, The Book of Margery Kempe, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and Stoner by John Williams.
Maybe it was a pub in Dublin. My eyes sank through an alphabet where they gripped each long word in the middle of a page:
bababadalgharaghtakamminarro-ruonnthunntrovarrhounawnskaw@.
‘Lomax, there have been a few townspeople going in and out of her.’
I counted the letters. There was misbehaviour—that sort of personal object.
‘As a matter of fact—’ I tried the word aloud. University. It sounded like a heavy wooden commiseration upon the necessities of middle-class morality. Step after that book, I let them fan slowly. My, that ought to be a haven for the rebel—we concluded that practically, but doubted if he understood the intelligence and the heart. In his office the landscape shimmered and S. said his hands ached. Now, according to complaints, from students mostly, it seems that men have been seen across stacks for flagrant [ ], as if it were a game—he rather admires the self. He has the reputation to think of. We, where Katherine lived, bowing to the dictates of the night, and some mornings. The community of scholars found her just awakened against the Protestant ethic, naked beneath the dark blue—speaking, we were helpless. It...ride until the end of all time, the—a tightness in his throat between my hands. One left for school, but even my [ ]. They hung the raw, red screen like a wound. I crawled the padded bedstead and let the tombstone. It was not heavy enough to make me sleep.
In his extreme youth Adam, from swerve of absolute being, a commodius vicus of recirculation, might find access, Enrons...the heaven of a false unpleasant dent in my stomach, gaze with an amused and an embarrassed…
Start that illusion; he saw it as an it that was invented, and before Eve and Adam’s day by day, by the will [ ] probably signified something. The hours that he once, by you, made contemplation in God. Alive and greedy—high in his grave.
‘Remember, Lord, Lazarus, where your holy body was and as I have been, in that holy man, and where Lazarus was raised from death to life, [ ] mortal sin. If any prayer may help this hour, make them live without end.
‘I thank you, Lord, for all those sins that you have kept me from, which I have not done, and I thank you, Lord, for all the sorrow that graces [ ], and to all creatures on earth. Have [ ] until the world’s end, such grace as they grant for the abundance of your mercy. Which rose twisted into silence? I feigned sleep until my mother shut out the light of the tiny vessels in front of the mattress and the fall there. About a thought of riverrun, past Eve and, if one were lucky, one bend of bay, brings us by maturity. He decided it was back to Howth Castle and religion, toward which one thick book made disbelief. A gently familiar contempt, riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s nostalgia, state of grace—a human act of becoming, a condition flowed from moment and the soup of letters to the blissful trinity for love of my confessors. In that life we may most please god.’
Toohoordenenthurunk!
Blessed may God be in you all, and for all your mercies in heaven and on earth. And especially Magdalene, for Mary of Egypt, falling—and as you have shown mercy, step, lifting the pages of the dimly familiar, the same heaven without end.
‘Remember, Lord, the woman brought before you.’
And as you stood alone upon his blank [ ] until our life’s end. Every morning, all that you are in heaven, he wandered you in God. Blessed be you, campus to the library, where I have shown to all [ ]. I bless you, Lord. He played with himself, for St. Paul, and for St. Augustine—imposed suspense, slipped. Made his way to the house, mercy of heart. The peace and the rest, she often worked late into disciples, and to your lovers, when they came to her apartment, and in warmth and sensual with sleep. In adultery and all enemies may drive away my spirit, so that I may stand dead to all the joys of this world. [ ] made it impossible for S. to speak. He swallowed twice and tested his voice; it was perfectly clear, of course.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ Finch said.
‘But I never knew he hated me, he would—I never dreamed…’ we said.
He walked back to his desk and sat down heavily.
‘And I can’t do a thing, Bill. I’m helpless—witnesses and word.’
He shook his head. ‘If [ ], he’ll crucify the girl,’ Finch said flatly, ‘and as if by accident you’ll be dragged into it.’
Photography by Lucian Potlog