Everything started with the opening sentence. Wait. That might be the stupidest thing I’ve said lately although there are some pretty ripe contenders, this is my second week of a dreamy holiday, there are a million Nancy Drew books in one of the bedrooms, I’ve read a few thousand of them already, there are a million stars at night and I open-mouth swoon at them, there was a full moon the colour of a peach and I uttered wow so many times somebody nudged me. Twice.

Lake Superior is an autological lake.

I googled Carolyn Keene early this morning. I wanted to see if she’d written anything else and that’s when I found out the horrible truth. So most of this story is true except for the parts that relate to the first sentence. I do that a lot. There’s something honourable about fiction, lies are expected and allowed, but when you mix fiction and non it feels a bit like deception, and it’s lovely to write, it’s gently devious, fun to pull the wool slowly. Don’t know why I forget how to pronounce things when I read them aloud, forgive me, thanks for being here.

There’s a light on next door. Did you know that Carolyn Keene was a pseudonym and that the Nancy Drew books were ghostwritten by multiple ghosts, many of whom were men. I know. Like, fucking boo! I only just found out about it and am disproportionately upset, my fridge is not working and there is a heat wave and I couldn’t give a rat’s ass, spoiled food is nothing compared to this. I admired Carolyn Keene deeply. She and Olympian Nancy Green who zoomed down those mountains so beautifully were my heroes. I used to bomb down our slopes with zero control and I used to write the same way, yesterday I was told I write like a river, I have leveled off with practice but the motion’s the same, it's purposefully out of control now, mostly. Do you wish I hadn’t told you about the ghosts? Well wake the fuck up sunshine this has been going on forever. Silas Marner was different, Mary Ann called herself George for gender cred. They tear down monuments and rename streets and cities and universities but Silas Marner's still by George Elliot. There’s a light on next door. Shall I invent a reason for my neighbour to be up at this hour? What is on his conscience or is there something souring in his guts. I watch the figure move from room to room, should I give him a limp or a lisp or maybe just a late night tilt which could mean he’s slightly drunk but could also mean many other things. It could mean he is a relation. I will give him a winning Scrabble name, Joaquin Zachery Moxley. There’s a light on next door. He could be my uncle, my grandfather, the light’s not perfect and there is distance so he could also be a she. Who wants to see the stripes on anyone’s pyjamas through the stagnant hot – Stella! – summer – Stella! – night – Stella! He paces, there’s something of a soldier to the way he walks and turns and walks and turns but those soft blue rumpled stripes down his silhouette indicate otherwise. At first I think he is drinking invisible liquid from an invisible glass until I realize he is checking his watch. What? What? What? And what of the heart beneath his striped pocket? Is it in pieces or irregular or fraudulent or simply pumping his blood around that irritated shape. Fucking weird how men wear an approximation of a business suit to bed. There’s a light on next door. Can anyone tell me what to do… like… in general. Wait. Look. Write? Now? Here? Him? There’s a light on next door. It is 3:20am. I, too, pace. I, too, wear pyjamas although mine are old clothes still in circulation because I wear them on don'tgiveafuck days. There’s a light on next door. I find my boots and slip into them and I go quietly out my screen door which closes softly like a swallow and to the light like a moth. If someone said oh and by the way we have been hiding other things, too, there is less gravity at night, the appendix governs the imagination, the composition of water is H3O, I would remain unaffected but for a casual nod of acknowledgment. There is a light on next door. You are going to think me mad. Next door is where my glut of characters live, the poor bastards, the place is lousy with them, they live like an indifferent cat lady’s cats and once in a while one of them makes it to the living room and is up for grabs. I am going to watch this guy. I am going to take my disappointment out on him. There’s a light on next door. There are a few errant cicadas, the rumble and blur of a hot city, the tic tic tic of a hammer or the drip drip drip of H3O. No. Wait. It’s typewriter keys. He will have no lisp or tilt but tinnitus, he is unaware of the cicadas and cannot hear the click of the opening door but he feels a slight pull of air, it’s hot, it’s Stanley Kowalski hot, it’s desperate, his pyjama pocket is electric, he sees me. We tread the air like water but do not move closer to one another, he indicates with a lean of his head the piece of paper in the typewriter, there are others like him in the deep basement but there’s something about him, the pyjamas he wears like a suit, I need somebody to take my disappointment out on, maybe I’ll make him a ghostwriter, or maybe I’ll just make him a ghost. I swim to the typewriter and there’s only one sentence: There’s a light on next door.