The Briefcase

What I learned about being a writer from trying to finish a dead man's book

- RICHARD KELLY KEMICK

THERE ARE NUMEROUS DRAFTS. Some parts are written in pencil, some in pen, some on a typewriter, and some on a computer. Several pages were printed on old-timey paper attached to each other along a perforated edge, unfurling like a scroll, and some were saved on a 3.5-inch floppy that can now be retrieved only as a file of randomized numbers, like code in the Matrix.

The progression of technology seems to imply a hierarchy of edits-that the pencil draft is superseded by the pen draft, the typewritten pages supersede the longhand ones, and the perforated paper supersedes them all. However, scenes rarely appear in more than one edition, meaning that each ensuing draft was more addition than revision.

Everything is unstapled; pagination happens randomly and redundantly. "Page one" repeats like déjà vu. There are notebooks labelled "The Fortress Before Armageddon" or "Origins Pt II: Plus Messiah's Speeches" or "THE WAR" (emphasis in original), but it is impossible to discern sequence. There's a typewritten stack, bound by a paper clip, that is titled "CHAPTER" but without any ensuing number; and beside it, in demonstrative red ink, is written "DONE." There's a folder labelled "OUTLINE." It is empty.

There is orphaned loose leaf; there are algebraic formulas; there are hand-drawn character sketches. The point of view veers between third and first. Sometimes it takes the form of a memoir; sometimes it's epistolary; sometimes there is what one would call poetry.

The narrative itself takes place across several books, over multiple generations, on several astral planes. There is a timeline of reality, which begins as a straight shot but then pivots into cubes that stack upon themselves. One scene is dated 1982, another is dated 2500 AD, and another features a knight with a sword.