THE MENTAGRA

“THE INCIPIT was not exactly a textual illumination but an extended majuscule,” he said, wiping his lips.

Sadly, I had no idea of his meaning or of the spelling of ‘incipit’ or ‘majuscule’ or even of the context, in the unlikely event of needing to record this conversation for posterity. 

“Excuse me?” I replied. The conversation seemed to have started as if halfway through: a weird feeling caused by a combination of an old trick that selective memory often played on me and of an ever-present sense of deja-vu that had dogged me all my life and of a difficulty I had in distinguishing identities and of having a sense of timing that seemed to differ from that of anyone I met to the extent I was always either late or early and of, finally, quite forgetting all these ‘problems’ (just listed) when I went out into the ‘field of life’.

I looked hard at the man who had just spoken.  He was well-dressed, middle-aged and self-evidently wordy.  However, it was his beard that attracted my attention the most. This seemed to contrast with everything else I have just said about him. It was not so much the beard itself but what lay underneath it: a seeping soreness developing into boils or pustules. I could not believe he was unaware of this condition but he did not once attempt to scratch the area during the long conversation we conducted together, despite the soreness visibly growing worse.  I once had impetigo as a small child, which caused my parents (in the early nineteen-fifties) to obtain our family’s first TV so as to pacify the tantrums created in me by the discomfort of having my mouth scabbed over,  This man’s condition was not dissimilar, I felt.

The conversation had turned from printing to what created the print, i.e. words.

“You can have print without it being made up of words,” he claimed.

“But it would be nonsense if the print’s not made up of words, making it pointless to have the print at all.  It would be made up print.”

In retrospect, my reply seemed to be dragged along by the sounds of the words rather than by their meanings.

“Well nonsense, as well as sense, can be print.” He smiled.  He knew he was right.  The smile came like the sun over a desolate scorched earth, belying the sore weeping below the sudden smile’s participation in the man’s overall friendly gaze.  I felt sorry for him.  I needed to tell him to see a doctor, as he may be unaware of the condition. However, I decided to remain uncommitted to greater personal contact with him. The condition was not exactly life-threatening, after all.

“Take Finnegans Wake...”

“I rather not!” I laughed.

“It’s a mentagra.”

“A what?”

“A mentagra.”  And he spelled the word for me by writing it down on his serviette.  I forgot to make it clear here that we were having a meal together.  Or rather than my forgetting, it was probably my being a caring censor of events. I couldn’t bear to watch him eat his soup, for obvious reasons, so I thought it best to leave the context of our conversation to the imagination.

“What is a mentagra?” I asked.

“It’s something cast as meaningful, but actually is nonsense.”

“What’s the opposite of a mentagra, then?” I asked, humouring him.

“By asking that, I presume you want to know if there is a word for something cast as nonsense, but actually is meaningful, rather than the other way round?”

< truncated > 

THE END (omitting the kiss)

 Some of you may know the answer to the question at the end? If so please place it in the comments below.  

Above written today and first published here.