The Shrug

I'm going to be found out, that's what I worry about, says W. Someone's going to find out about me and shoot me, W. says, it's only right. '"How have I survived this long?"', W. says, 'that's your only thought. "By what miracle have I survived?"'

W. has thought up many excuses for me. He's had to account for me at length to his friends. Explain him!, they demand. What's going on? And W. has to explain, as best he can, how it all started, how our collaboration began.

But what can he say, really? There's a limit to every explanation, which is to say the sheer physical fact of my existence. There you are, says W. And before that fact, what can anyone do but shrug?