Nemo Ipsum Solveat

No one will be able to solve it, I said to Pliny the Elder.

It doesn't matter, he replied. In fact I hope they can't. That will teach those editors to tell me what to write. They'll see I can do perfectly well without pretending to be a detective.

That's fine, I said, but ..... it is solvable, isn't it?

Of course it is, said Pliny, particularly by someone like you.

Like me? I repeated.

A fellow writer, he said, generously.

Well, let me have a go, I said. I know that what was written on the back of the piece of paper was what I saw you writing earlier when I sneaked a look over your shoulder.

Yes, correct, said Pliny. And you know that then I had to rejig it a bit because of that ridiculous request.

Mmm. Am I right that both sides of the paper were written in your handwritng?

Yes.

Aha! So you wrote down a list of facts relating to your original story. and then you changed the story. That's why they don't make sense to Gaius!

Yes, that's it! said Pliny.

But why are they inside the book that Gaius is reading? I asked, still struggling to understand. And why is the story he reads not the same as the one he remembers by Kafka?

Think! said Pliny. Who is Gaius?

You, I said. Oh I get it. This is all just about the process of writing, is it? Only you reversed it. Or turned it inside out. And allowed yourself to escape from your frame. Or something like that.

Right. Something like that, said Pliny.