The Old Lacquered Box

In an old lacquered box, about twelve by ten by eight inches, there quietly sat little notebooks holding some previously typed writing and also many original penciled writing with cross-outs and additions on a motley mix of papers. The order in which all this paper emerged, once the lid of the box was lifted, was only roughly inverse to the chronological order in which they were written, suggesting that a few desultory attempts to organize the writings were superseded by the spontaneous thrusting of additional papers into the old lacquered box from time to time.