The only thing Chuck Quince can remember about his trip to the future was that they’d invented a machine that could make a book as big as the Bible so small that it would fit on the head of a pin.

The idea of all those verses pressed together so tightly made Chuck nervous. Important words could get squeezed out, like the ‘not’ in ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’, and folks would be led astray.

It was bad enough knowing that time folded over on itself, and that all it would take to shoot him onto some future layer was making it to the bottom of a couple of jars of Jim O’Grady’s moonshine.

But all the words of a whole book curled up all together, small as a mustard seed?

Surely the meanings would get twisted too, like the twists and turns of fate, like the confounded syntax of Chuck’s roiling thoughts.

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