we know why you wrote us

we know why you wrote us, the quiet said. you wrote us because you needed villains. you wanted symbols, didn't you? you always liked your symbols. everything has to mean something. things can never be left alone. your tendencies as an author and as a reader cannot be escaped, i do not think. even when you write without symbols, you view it as meaningless, as less important than that which you write which works in meaning. you drive yourself mad with attempts at interpretation whenever you watch a film or read a poem. not a novel, mind you, you don't read that much anymore, for however much you write.

"And besides, this format is a symbolic one," the Blind Man said. "What's the point of a labyrinth where the signposts don't point anywhere? Even the dead ends have to mean something. Not that you ever got far in the Graab."

i always found it ironic, really, the quiet said. postmodernism still needs symbols, just as much as modernism, and dada can only exist when placed in opposition to tradition. there is no metatext without text, just as there is no anti-art without art. and you know this. that is why we are here. because you needed to write us in.

"I still don't understand," I said.

The Blind Man smiled, though through those dark glasses, the glasses I cannot remember, I could not tell whether his smile was genuine. "But you will."

and then i felt the mouth of the void close around me and swallow