Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace

‘I’m surprised you were even there. In person. I was expecting the Disembodied Voice and asking you to call back ASAP on this. What is it out there, 1600? Why aren’t you outside hard at play? Don’t tell me Schtitt started cancelling P.M.’s for I.-Day Eve.’ ‘I tagged this kid Pemberton in the eye up at net. It was inadvertent. We were only four games in. He hit a big soft fluffy goose of an approach and I was trying to handcuff him. I hit it at him only to handcuff him. He never even got his stick up. Right in the left socket. It made a sound like a champagne cork. A prorector named Corbett Thorp said he thought Pemberton might have detached a retina. Something sure seemed detached. He was walking around in diminishing circles like he’d been hit with a mallet.’ ‘You sound really, like, remorse-riddled.’ ‘Kitchens and heat, O. I’ve taken my share of balls in various spots. And whence bizarre metric theories about Emily Dickinson all of a sudden, by the way? And what’s up with the lurking figures with wheelchairs?’ ‘You’re a Top-Ten junior stickman