UNHERENT: An Associative Fiction

3 min readFeb 8, 2020

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Unherent: adjective

without clear or intrinsic characteristics or values / undefined / possessing a property or properties whose nature is determined by the mind of the individual observing it

Page 1: The Door

“The quaint analogy quite hauntingly remained with him, when he didn’t indeed rather improve it by a still intenser form: that of his opening a door behind which he would have made sure of finding nothing, a door into a room shuttered and void, and yet so coming, with a great suppressed start, on some quite erect confronting presence, something planted in the middle of the place and facing him through the dusk.” — Henry James, The Jolly Corner.

A doorway is simultaneously both an entrance and an exit. The door its self is a barrier, a point of separation. It is designed specifically to keep certain things out while holding other things in. Danger is, therefore, always inherent when choosing to open a door. Although you can infer all you like, you can never be certain of just what you will find on the other side. And so, as if writ upon a sign unceremoniously hung by a bit of twine upon the doorknob, we read: “ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK, ALL YE WHO SHOULD SO DARE, FOR THIS WAY SURELY MADNESS LIES.”

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Page 2: Pick a Card

HER NAME IS EVELYN, BUT YOU CAN CALL HER EVE

Page 3: Splash

“I’m sorry, Evie. I’m so sorry. I wish that I could change what happened, I really do. I wish that I could wipe it all away, as easily I brushed those tears from your cheeks on that night as we lay in bed after you had told me about your brother, but I can not. What happened, happened, but I am truly sorry. I just wanted you to know that.”

Page 4: The Grove

“Do you remember the picnic that we had at Polermo Grove? Do you remember how we went skinny-dipping in the lake, but you got scared because you thought that someone was watching us from the trees, so I shaded you with my body as we emerged from the lake and wrapped you with the picnic blanket as you got dressed? Then I took you home, and that was the first night that we made love, and it was one of the most beautiful days of my life.”