Bartleby: Nope.

Amble: No.

Reporter Reporter: I don’t understand.

Bartleby: Have to read it once more.

Amble: Next weekend.

RR: Why not tomorrow?

Bartleby: Copyright holder’s constraints.

Amble: Paper mounds drown. Ceilings leak and boilers fail. People tell him he’s no good, that he doesn’t care since (they assume) his ceiling doesn’t leak and his boiler works.

RR: But surely these physical and psychological interruptions cannot be allowed to delay such a great spiritual, emotional, and intellectual achievement!

Bartleby: Now comes five days of stressful boredom invading and boiling through the system. Not much literature can be accomplished in this painfully loud hubbub.

Amble: Can’t be helped.

RR: It seems a great misallocation of resources.

Bartleby: Mmm. If you want me, I’m turning into a blue whale to settle upon the sandy ocean floor, thinking nothing.

Amble: Did you ever even read “First Loves”?

RR: Well …

Amble: Did you?

RR: Not in the actual, literal sense. But aren’t you guys all about non-literal senses?

Amble: So there you go! You’ve got a week’s worth of reading ahead of you.

Bartleby: It’s not that long. I don’t see why you need a week. How come no one’s bought that book, anyway?

Amble: Anyway, time to drift on out.

Bartleby: What’s wrong with it? Doesn’t Something Deeperism and Pure Love meander gently through its fictions like a nutrient- and life-rich muggymuddy river winds through the grateful plains?

Amble: I don’t know. I can’t remember. So long ago. So many shoulder shrugs between then and now.

RR: You heard it here first, folks! “First Essays” delayed! A sad scoop, but a scoop none the less! Terrible news, but still a notch on my belt! You heard it here first!

Author: Bartleby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright Holder: Andrew Mackenzie Watson