Excerpt from In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan

The Bell

After while I went down to iDEATH and worked on that bell.  It was not coming at all and finally I was sitting there on a chair, staring at it.

My chisel was hanging limply in my hand, and then I put it down on the table and absentmindedly covered it up with a rag.

Fred came in and saw me sitting there staring at the bell.  He left without saying anything.  It hardly even looked like a bell.

Finally Margaret came and rescued me.  She was wearing a blue dress and had a ribbon in her hair and carried a basket to put things in that she found at the Forgotten Works.

"How's it coming?" she said.

"It's finished," I said.

"It doesn't look finished," she said.

"It's finished," I said.