why is the rocket going nowhere?

“And he sensed percolating from the kitchen, humble, squalid, time-marking human thought, marking time in one spot, always in one spot, going round and round, in circles, as if they were dizzy but couldn’t stop. as if they were nauseated but couldn’t stop, the way we bite our nails, the way we tear off dead skin when we’re peeling, the way we scratch ourselves when we have hives, the way we toss in our beds when we can’t sleep, to give ourselves pleasure and make ourselves suffer, until we are exhausted, until we’ve taken our breath away. . . .” —Nathalie Sarraute

[see also: memos 104:110403, 108:111003, 110:111303, and especially 117:112403]

Here is an excerpt from my unfinished novel Zen Arcade:

As he was walking into the kitchen, he decided the project of building a human shell from dead skin cells was no different from the man who had decided to record every minute of his life in a diary. In Adam’s mind, the man had started out writing things like “walked from the desk to the refrigerator, poured myself a glass of milk, drank it and walked back to the desk,” but had soon realized he was leaving things out, things like picking up and opening the milk carton, placing it back in the refrigerator, and closing the refrigerator door. The realization that he was leaving some things out led to other realizations, which led to writing things like “unconsciously sent a message from my brain to my right leg, the muscles in that leg contracted to lift my leg and move it forward,” and on and on until eventually, the only thing the man would have been able to write was “I am writing the sentence I am writing right now. I am writing the sentence I am writing right now” over and over and over again until he died. Adam thought that sounded very much like eternally pushing a boulder up a hill, always up. And so the same with building a human shell one sloughed cell at a time. As soon as you had found and placed one cell, 20 more would have fallen off. His original estimate of seven years as the project’s duration had been way off. It was probably something more like seven factorial, or—once again, it was too early for math, and so he focused on making some coffee.
He was daily amazed that the coffee pot his parents had bought before he was born was still working, as he had been through at least three tape-recorders in that time, and he used the tape-recorder far less frequently than the coffee pot.
He picked the coffee pot up. He took off the lid and put it in the sink. He reached into the pot. He extracted the stem and the basket. He set the pot down. He disengaged the stem from the basket and placed it in the sink. He took the lid off the basket. He placed it in the sink. He opened the cupboard door under the right-hand side of the sink where the trash can was located. He knocked yesterday’s grounds into the trash. He placed the basket in the sink. He turned on the water. He adjusted the faucet so that the water was just a little hotter than comfortable. He rinsed the lid. He placed it in the drying rack. He rinsed the stem and placed it in the drying rack. He rinsed the basket’s lid. He put it in the drying rack. He rinsed the basket. He thought, What is today? Is today the day I wash everything with soap and water? He put the basket in the drying rack. He turned off the water. He picked up the pot again, and dumped its contents into the sink. He watched the day-old coffee as it swirled down the drain. He thought, Now certainly I have deposited skin cells onto the lid, the stem, the basket, and the basket’s lid, and those cells will get mixed into the coffee I will drink, and then. . . . I would have to strain my urine. That wouldn’t work. Of course, none of it would work. The only feasible way to perform the task of building a human shell was to be dead. If he were dead, he would no longer be sloughing off skin cells. At least, he thought, in this thought process, the boulder rolls back down the hill. He put the coffee pot under the faucet, and turned on the hot water. He filled the pot about half-way. He swished the water around in the pot. He turned the pot over and dumped the dirty water down the sink. He watched the water go down the drain. He righted the coffee pot. He turned the faucet’s handle all the way to cold. He turned the water on and filled the coffee pot up to the prescribed line. He turned the water off. He removed the pot from under the faucet, and set it back on the counter. He grabbed the stem from the drying rack. He grabbed the basket with his other hand. He placed the thin part of the stem into the receiving hole in the basket. He placed the basket-stem combination into the coffee pot. He opened the cupboard just above and to the left of the sink. He grabbed the canister of coffee. He put it on the counter. He pried off the plastic lid. He set the lid down. He reached into the canister. He grabbed the plastic measuring spoon inside of the canister and lifted. He dumped the little bit of coffee grounds in the spoon back into the canister. He liked to start with an empty spoon. He dug the spoon into the coffee, leveled the amount by wiping his finger across the top of the spoon, and dumped the coffee grounds into the basket. He dug the spoon into the coffee, leveled the amount by wiping his finger across the top of the spoon, and dumped the coffee grounds into the basket. He dug the spoon into the coffee, leveled the amount by wiping his finger across the top of the spoon, and dumped the coffee grounds into the basket. He dug the spoon into the coffee, leveled the amount by wiping his finger across the top of the spoon, and dumped the coffee grounds into the basket. He dug the spoon into the coffee, leveled the amount by wiping his finger across the top of the spoon, and dumped the coffee grounds into the basket. He dug the spoon into the coffee, leveled the amount by wiping his finger across the top of the spoon, and dumped the coffee grounds into the basket. He put the spoon back into the canister. He put the plastic lid back on the canister by pressing down all the way around the edge. He put the canister back in the cupboard. He closed the cupboard door. He grabbed the basket’s lid out of the drying rack. He fitted it over the basket. He grabbed the pot’s lid from the drying rack. He pushed it down on top of the coffee pot. He plugged the coffee pot in. He opened the cupboard he had just closed, and took down his mug. He set it next to the coffee pot. He closed the cupboard. He sat down at the kitchen table. He waited.