Johannes Gutenberg Eats His Dinner On The Eve Of The Publication Of His 42-Line Movable Type Bible by Valerie O’Riordan
J
ohannes Gutenberg feels nauseous.
Under the table, he lifts his napkin and touches his stomach. He can feel his dinner pulse and lurch. He feels lumps and swellings. His head aches. “Is everything all right, Mr. Gutenberg?� demands Mrs. Schmidt from the other end of the table. Johannes sits very still and stares at his knife and fork. Mrs. Schmidt marches down the room, pausing and leaning in behind each man and drowning his plate in gravy, submerging the sprouts and cabbage, and growing larger and more terrifying the closer she gets to Johannes’ side. Her boots clang against the floor, and her moustache flourishes in a way that his, resistant to dozens of miracle remedies and treatments, refuses. The other lodgers laugh at her; Johannes has dreams in which she appears as a giant amphibian creature that pulls him, screaming, into the ocean, tentacles sucking and grasping.
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“Gravy, Mr. Gutenberg?” She bends over and loops her arm around his neck and pours, her face an inch from his own in an embrace that makes Johannes Gutenberg break out in enormous beads of sweat. Her teeth are too long. Her eyebrows are plucked raw. Her moustache is thick and glossy. Johannes can’t breathe. His intestines writhe. He wants to cry. He tries to calm down; he unclenches his toes. He recalls the phrase that has occupied him all day; he mutters it aloud and traces it out quickly with his index finger in the thick gravy: The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing. But the shapes and spacing of the letters evade him; the gravy oozes around the plate and ruins everything; the smell of the meat makes him ill. His head thumps and his finger slips on the final stop and his plate tilts and crashes away from him, rearing up, gravy
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and potatoes spilling onto the tablecloth and splattering all over him and all over Mrs. Schmidt, who still hangs from his neck, her gravy boat swinging. She licks her lips. The men cheer and pound the tabletop; Johannes jerks backwards, pulling the tablecloth with him, and his beer overturns and runs down his lap. Mrs. Schmidt runs a finger across his face and licks it clean; the men roar, and she grins and holds her finger in the air. Johannes moans. Mrs. Schmidt clamps her hand onto his shoulder. A clump of potatoes perches on the exact top of her head. She opens her mouth and her tongue flaps about horribly, and he can’t make out a word.
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Beneath the table, the dogs stir as gravy drips onto the floor. They watch without interest as Mrs. Schmidt’s hand gropes about underneath the napkin and grasps the wet crotch of Johannes Gutenberg’s trousers, and squeezes hard. Johannes whimpers and pulls from his waistcoat pocket the little metal letter he has stolen from his workshop and carries about with him everywhere. He clutches it tightly. He presses it into his palm until he feels his skin give way. The edge is sharp; he closes his eyes and concentrates on the blood trickling down his wrist until he can’t feel anything else. His palm is scarred; the blood runs in deltas. The letter is A, for beginnings, for all sorts.
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Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (1398-1468)
this was an
unnecessary ebook