Once upon a time, there was a corrector. She never read books. She only read sentences. She was very happy with strict logic. Literature wasn’t really her ‘thing’. But then she had to correct my text. For a book on healing, with an exposition in a museum.
I had titled my essay “Life itself is a polyrhythm / On healing”. No, no, and no, she couldn’t let that pass. She wrote in the margin: “Editors: the text doesn’t really deal with rhythm until the very last paragraph, and so it seems to be to be disconnected. Maybe rename it to…” And she proceeded to weed out all music and rhythm of my words, my style, my sentences.
After having done so, proud of her good work, she remarked: “Also, the final paragraph doesn’t really work as an epilogue”.
After which I conclusion I shook my head, poured myself a cup of coffee, decided to not try to correct her, and threw her corrections out.
(And as you might have noticed: she did indeed write two times ‘to be’…)
The End.