"So I read [Thomas Bernhard's] Extinction very slowly indeed, and did most of that reading in the toilet cubicle at work. Most thinking and much else at work must be done in toilet cubicles. Toilet cubicles are about the only place where thinking can happen, I thought, where the association between thinking and [elimination] seemed entirely appropriate to my deplorable state of mind. It was unbearable to read a book like Extinction slowly. Only so much time can be spent in a toilet cubicle before one leg goes dead, followed by the other. It is easy to spot these toilet cubicle thinkers, I thought. They walk around with one dead leg from too much sitting on the pot. They think for the amount of time it takes for one leg to go dead, I thought, but not the other. Being habitual toilet cubicle thinkers, they leave the cubicle before the second leg goes dead so that they have one leg to hobble with. Becoming an experienced cubicle thinker myself, I only read Extinction in one-leg sittings."
Alex Kudera’s award-winning novel, Fight for Your Long Day (Atticus Books), was drafted in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea. Auggie’s Revenge (Beating Windward Press) is his second novel. His numerous short stories include “Frade Killed Ellen” (Dutch Kills Press), “Bombing from Above” (Heavy Feather Review), and “A Thanksgiving” (Eclectica Magazine).
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