EXCERPT ‘You go there to see something that isn’t there anymore.’ On the uncontained and brimming lake of necessity, a single shoe floats, a formerly lemon-loud trainer resisting the inevitable; stubby nose down, taking water; optimistic retail history pulling towards the theoretical shoreline, a rind of sediment and disused memory without consequence or doctrine. ‘The parallel world is forested and derelict.’ If there were once tribes, they have gone. And their songs. An unsourced photograph in a drowned archive. Impossible to discover whose story this is to tell. An ‘author’ of reputation has been remotely commissioned but de-assigned. Digital prompts offer no point of access. Without serviceable anecdotes, no forward momentum. Tidal, yes. But not progressive. Cliffs nibbled but not swallowed. Author-Ship trapped for a season in pack ice. Floes do not flow. Words stall. A lowering and undeveloped sky blanket scratched by rivers of sound. Flights discontinued. Rumours of volcanic activity in Iceland. Ash clouds of burnt pages.…