The Piano Wire Device

This is how he wrote:

He hated small sharp pains. Small lacerations, paper cuts, split toenails, puncture wounds; these made his whole body prickle with a nauseous energy, a disturbing heat.

He felt his writing needed this, a kind of underlying ferment.

He invented a device. It had a short length of medium gauge piano wire attached to a high tension spring. It had straps to hold his arm in place. The release mechanism was attached to the guts of an old alarm clock.

This added an element of surprise.

He didn’t know exactly when the spring would release, the wire zinging through its short arc.

One application would produce a page or so of writing imbued with the agitated quality he sought.