The Topeka School

by Ben Lerner

How many of his small gestures and postures in the present were embodied echoes of the past, repetitions just beneath the threshold of his consciousness?

My theory was that, under conditions of information overload, the speech mechanisms collapse—

“The opposite of a truth,” Klaus quoted, “is a falsehood; but the opposite of a profound truth”—pause for emphasis, sound of sprinklers, insects, push mowers, felt absence of city noise, Kenny Rogers from a passing car—“may be another profound truth.”