Page 119

By Jack Joseph Smith

He wanted to tell the story over and over again, but it faded out with each attempt. It was important to him to let the story go completely from his mind, to let it flow. One or the other. Nothing inbetween must be able to exist in his thoughts. The vagueness periods were not disdainfull; he only went about business in the usual way. "All the same this story though MAybE wee and priv- ate must be goNE FroM his single brain like a great thruth, What seriousness can there be in so much energy wanting to re- veil so little, spoke his memory? But then great mushrooms ly in the moss most secret and small. ThEN But hE still couldn't do ANy thing About it, bEcAusE hE didn't hAvE ANy MoNEy At All

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A man tries to retell a fading story and wants it to leave his mind. The narrator considers the energy spent revealing little, compares hidden material to small mushrooms in moss, and ends with the man's inability to act because he has no money.

The writer revises the relation between the vague, private story and a single brain, leaving crowded wording that resists a smooth reading. The final handwritten financial obstacle is legible, but it does not establish the man's identity or circumstances outside the draft.

Claude

Typed prose: 'He wanted to tell the story over and over / again, but it faded out with each attempt.', the story 'though MAybE wee and priv- / ate must be goNE FroM his single brain', 'great mushrooms ly in the moss most secret / and small.', and a handwritten ending 'But hE still couldn't do ANy thing / About it, bEcAusE hE didn't hAvE / ANy MoNEy At All'.

The passage weighs letting a story go against telling it, then undercuts the reflection with the blunt fact of having no money.