Drowning.

So you know how sometimes, after a long day of hiking, all you want to do is go to your local bar and reread Donald Barthelme's short story "Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning"? Because it is one of the most amazing short stories you've ever read but you can't figure out why and it has been haunting you for like six years?

Well that is what I am doing right now and I have got to tell you: I still cannot figure this story out and - not only that! - I still can't figure out why it is so good. But it really really is that good!

At this point I'm a decently educated guy and I'm supposed to understand the mechanics of these things, but I just can not figure out this story.

Let's say I had been trained as an electrical engineer and that this is a blog about electrical engineering and one day I walked into a house and looked at the fusebox and concluded, "I have no fucking idea what is going in here." But the lights are still on.

That is how I feel when I read this story. 

It is seldom that I feel this way. I have been trained to deconstruct the heart and soul out of anything and everything (that may be why I often seem so dead inside to you!), but this story - so far, anyway - really still seems to be made of magic.

Don't worry, I will crack this nut eventually. It may just take awhile.

.

.

.