He had been typing for a while before he stopped.
The paragraph was nearly right.
He read it again.
No.
The problem wasn’t the sentence he had been working on. It was three paragraphs earlier.
He scrolled up.
Deleted two lines.
Read what remained.
Then he typed into the other window:
What changes if the distinction is provenance rather than classification?
The answer began arriving.
He read the first paragraph and stopped it.
“No. You’re making them opposites.”
He typed again.
They can both survive. Try again.
This time he let the answer finish.
There was one sentence in the middle he liked.
He copied it into the draft.
Read it there.
Deleted it.
It had been better in the other window.
He stood up, walked to the kitchen, came back and sat down.
The cursor was still blinking where the sentence had been.
He typed another one.
That worked.
For a while there was only typing.
A paragraph moved.
Another became two.
He searched for a date he thought he remembered, discovered he had the year wrong, and changed the sentence around it.
Then he went back to the other window.
He typed:
What am I assuming here?
The answer gave him six things.
Four were useless.
One he already knew.
The last one bothered him.
He went back to the draft.
Three paragraphs disappeared.
“Damn.”
He laughed.
Then started again.
The next answer was better.
Not right.
Better.
He took the structure and left the sentences behind.
For a while he worked only in the draft.
Then stopped.
“Wait.”
He went back three paragraphs.
There it was.
The thing he had been trying to solve had already been solved, but in the wrong place.
He moved it.
Read from the beginning.
Stopped halfway.
Moved it back.
He typed into the other window:
I think I’m explaining something the reader already knows.
The answer agreed.
He frowned.
“That was too easy.”
He changed the question.
Make the case for keeping it.
The answer did.
He read it twice.
Then deleted the paragraph anyway.
The piece was shorter now.
He read it again.
Something was missing.
He couldn’t name it.
He got up.
Came back.
Typed a sentence.
Deleted it.
Typed another.
Kept half.
Asked a question.
Ignored the answer.
Went back to the half sentence.
Finished it differently.
Read the paragraph aloud.
“No.”
Again.
This time he heard it.
One word came out.
Then another.
He typed both.
The paragraph settled.
He kept some things.
Changed others.
Abandoned others entirely.
Followed one path until it failed.
Returned.
Tried another.
Eventually, the work stopped changing.
WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co.
