The next day Jones set out to teach himself how to read. He wrote out the alphabet letter by letter a number of times to make sure his impression of it was consistent and then transferred each strange character onto a piece of poster board where he put together a chart of his new alphabet. After he had capitalized and lower case versions of all 26 characters, he wanted to try to translate something simple, so he scanned his bookshelf for something that might work. His eyes stopped on a group of thin paperbacks he thought were his collection of James Bond novels. Jones had never gotten around to reading the books so they would work perfectly. He picked one off the shelf at random. Its cover was bright yellow and filled mostly with text, but there was a small graphic in the middle showing a man in a tuxedo, Bond, he assumed, spying on a group of people surrounding a roulette wheel. Jones didn’t recognize the book, so he set off on his translation and in no time he had discerned that it must be “Casino Royale.” Translating words this way proved to be more difficult than Jones had thought it would be. Lacking the ability to write out the actual letters he was familiar with, Jones had to rely on his memory of the order of his new alphabet on the chart. But his first translation left him encouraged so he flipped the book open to the first page and started on the first line. The first word was easy. It was just “The.” He could tell after the first two letters and felt no need to reference the third. The second word was trickier. Jones felt more frustrated than gratified when he saw that he had spelled the word “scent.” Lacking the pictures of the cover he found the words in the text much harder to grasp. He began to notice slight differences in the way he constructed his letters and the way they appeared on the printed page. Could this mean he was already losing his ability to write as the neurologist predicted? Perhaps, he thought, but even still he kept working on his translation and after nearly an hour of work he had: “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.” Indeed they are, Jones thought, and for a moment he felt proud of what he had accomplished. But then it occurred to him that what had just taken him an hour to discern would have normally taken him two seconds. This thought depressed him and instead of continuing with the next sentence he rolled a joint and turned on his television.

A Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon was on, his favorite. If only all one needed to communicate in this world was a series of beeps, Jones thought. But then he thought this was a stupid idea. Eventually he stopped thinking about these things and fell asleep.    

- The Illiterate