My Business Papers

I separate the discipline of writing, and the art of writing, and I set them like two irons out to the horizon, to the inconvenient northerly direction of colder moneys. It's been a while since it was my job to write at work, but I find myself again pondering the keys as my fingers linger over their printed plastic concavities. Clicketty-clacketty, the keyboard goes, and I am a train running over the rails. Not one, single, wooden railroad tie is important in itself. Or perhaps each is, but I pass them, take them for granted.

This is business writing; I make business papers. I leave nothing to the imagination. I run everything firmly along the bolted ground. Are these clicking letters noteworthy? Why do I line up these words, like miles behind me, in neatness, in rows, toward a distinct end? They don't make someone think; the thoughts are all had. They can make someone notice but can't make them see. The information is placed here, to go directly there, without mystery.

Is this my creative time, when my words may go where they will go? No. Will more destinations be opened up to the mind than the number of places I am refusing to let it go? No. This is the time when I must write linear thoughts into rectangular formats, bolding the main words, and adding the figures together, till there's nothing left to be thought about, on the subject, no hope but to change the subject to something entirely more interesting.

It takes all the art I can muster not to create - not feel around for inspirations - not grow, not change. Stick to the rails,

clicketty-clack, click-clack,

for the rails go only one

(click-clack)

direction, only one

(click-clack-click) place.

Clicketty-clack, click-clack, click-clack,

and that's my reader's destination,

click-clack, click-clack,

and I will put him to sleep with the swaying (click-clack) of the rectangular four-walled boxcar, with its right-angled, locked doors, and its dusty, uniform furniture.

When my passenger wakes he will wish to step down to the platform and stretch his legs, and thank the sky and the air for still being merely there in every explorable direction. He will want to do anything but ride on a rail. He will seek any activity but reading.

But till said arrival, necessarily, I will clicketty-clacketty-clickingly tick out and away to the hard iron skyline of my business papers.