“Freeze it!” my preservationist friend barked, near hysteria. “Freeze it for forty-eight hours! Then, taking a little horsehair brush, sweep gently from the center of the page to the edge.” She drew a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Now tell me one thing: Is there puke on the text?” But perhaps it was most accurate to leave it, I thought. Then anyone who read it in the future would know how it was: rents in reality, colors falling on colors, cries like a baby from nowhere. A little wisdom rose to me: There is always some puke on the text.
