Fractions

What’s your strategy, he asked, not noticing the difference between the piles distributed over the ironing board and upstairs railing. There are no more wholes. All of the wholes became halves. This was essential, to move it away from the thing that it was toward an unknown other future thing. Some of the halves were enough; they did not ask for more so those halves became a pile. Some of the halves were more demanding; they could not remain as halves. It was clear they would make trouble in pairs, or worse, they would do nothing more than lie around. So the lie abouts, they had to become quarters.

Some of these quarters are so well behaved. They are all together, congenial and relaxed. These are the modest pile closest to the water heater. They are content there, pressing one another’s seams flat in indirect light. But the rest of the quarters—too many of them, frankly—are on the worktable, in the workroom where the door can be closed. There is no where else for them to be. They won’t stop shouting. They won’t relax. They certainly won’t cooperate.

So here is the strategy: there are halves and quarters and now there must be some eighths.