#marginal self

[hypocrite-lecteur]

The third person remains beyond your threshold while I and you resemble each other. This makes her wonder is she really a person. And if no person, what? Touches the printed page as a talisman, as if its precise reference could teach her to be acknowledged by your stare even when the maple, the rain, the street, the park, all turn absent.

Rosmarie Waldrop, from "Third Person Singular"