Experiments in Style: Index version

The story "A bang on the head" in the form of an index

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

Introduction

One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style.

A full exposition and explanation are given here:

Experimenting with styles

This is another aspect of Oulipo, a form of writing that relies on constraints. I’m running a course in it soon. For details see this bit of my recent Start the Week post.

Here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:

The original (template) text

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

If an index is compiled properly — by which I mean skilfully — a glance through it should tell you what the book is about¹. The index below has not been compiled skilfully. In any event, the page references are pointless because there is only one page.

Here’s a challenge for you though: what essential thing is missing here? Let me know in the comments if you can spot it. Although, I have to concede, spotting nothing would be quite an achievement!

Index

A

Accident and Emergency · 1

B

bathroom · 1

book · 1

C

concussion, mild · 1

D

darkness · 1

door · 1

H

headaches · 1

K

knocked myself out · 1

M

masks · 1

N

nausea · 1

night, middle of the· 1

S

semi-somnambulance · 1

social distancing · 1

T

twilight · 1

W

wall · 1

writing · 1

So what do you think? Thanks to Nathan Slake for reminding me, by a comment of his, that I had written this a while ago but had forgotten to post it! Visit Nathan’s newsletter by clicking that link.

1. See, for example, my review of Index, A History of The