III

Imagine a gnome in a large room, with a deck of cards and a window--somewhat above the gnome's tiny stature's ability to reach--through which, occasionally, a heavy gust of wind will blow. It is the gnome's duty to build houses made of cards. But, naturally, each time the house is built, the gust of wind enters the room and flattens the fragile structure, leaving the despondent gnome with a bunch of cards again. A reader of Camus or Greek mythology, or perhaps just somebody who frequents cocktail parties, might relate this gnome to Sisyphus. But then, Sisyphus was not a gnome, so there we go.

Were I that gnome, I suspect that I might play solitaire, seeing as the cards were there, and gaze up at the window, counting clouds, and noting that the shapes I saw there were soon to melt into new shapes from which I would be unable to draw visual connections to, say, a duck, or a three-legged cow, or Richard Nixon. Then I would wonder whether the knowledge of the ephemerality of cardhouses is more reason to build them--whether beauty is only reckoned in degrees of finiteness? In that case, I would endeavor to build a large and ridiculous structure, perhaps like the Statue of Liberty--one that could never be finished and so is unthreatened by the breeze.