Tuesday, June the 14th, 2005
back to: title, date or indexes
Here be butterscotch, here, here and here, on this fragment of a map, painted on linoleum many years ago. It seems butterscotch was used by the cartographer as a symbol for sweetshops, and there were dozens of them in this town and its hinterland, if the map is accurate. We do not know the name of the town, for an infuriating thing about this map, or the tattered scrap of it that has survived, is that there are no words on it, no writing, just pictures and emblems and heraldic devices. Among all the butterscotch symbols there is a much larger drawing of a sort of flattened cylinder, vaguely tapered at one end, which may be meant to represent a toothpaste tube. With all those sweetshops, it would not come as a surprise if there was a toothpaste factory in the town.
I have said that the town being unidentified is cause for fury. What makes my rage pathological is the fact that what is left of the map is nailed to an enormous piece of masonry in the innermost chamber of a labyrinthine building, and the building itself is almost inaccessible, located as it is on some remote and godforsaken islet thousands of miles from where I live.
For eight years now, with my memory of the map in my mind's eye, I have been studying gazetteers and directories, slowly compiling a list of all the toothpaste factories in the world, including those long abandoned or demolished. I am driving crackers the staff of my local library, and have long grown used to the winces and groans that greet me as I sail majestically through the doors of the reference section. I have not managed—yet—to find the town I seek, but I have learned a great deal about toothpaste manufacture and, by the by, about confectionery. Quiz me as fiercely as you like on the topic of boiled sweets, or barley sugar, and I think you will find I pass muster.
It has been suggested to me that I should extend my researches to linoleum, to ascertain the source of the fragment on which the map is painted. I may be fixated beyond the bounds of reason, but I am no fool.
I always wear gloves when working.
I pore over the books brought to me, sucking on butterscotch, each wrapper neatly folded and tucked in my pocket. When I get home, I put each day's butterscotch wrappers into a shoebox. There are dozens of shoeboxes, labelled and shelved and dusted every Thursday morning, just before my weekly check on the rain gauge.
I will tell you all about the rain gauge, and its deadly significance, when I have put a name to the town on the map.