I

t had been a trying summer for Issue 18 of Exacting Clam—one full of extensive revisions and difficult edits—so that fall the issue booked an appointment with a therapist. One rainy afternoon in September, the book-in-progress sat down on a leather chair across from an elderly man who held a cup of hot tea in both hands. The therapist took a small sip and said, “Why don’t you tell me what brings you here?”

“It’s been a rough few months,” the issue confessed.

“Rough in what way?” said the therapist.

The literary journal tried to explain his predicament— the edits, the cover selection.

“I’m not hearing anything out of the ordinary here,” the therapist said. “You want a good cover, don’t you?”

“Sure, but . . .” The book leaned forward in his chair. “Here it is: I don’t know what I’m for—what I am.”

The therapist looked bemused. “You’re a literary journal.”

“But what’s that, exactly? ‘Wintered air, unclaimed in the cellar reeking of rhubarb wine—’”

“Yes,” said the therapist, “but also—”

“‘Peplos made of leaves and a himation made of coarse grasses’? ‘A poet embroiled in many a heated discussion’?

“My identity is not fully understood,” Issue 18 added.

“But aren’t you just about to be published?” The therapist was having some comprehension difficulty. “To be born, as it were?”

“’Publishing is Murder,’” said the issue. The therapist shook his head in confusion. “That’s one of my reviews,” the issue continued. “‘Publishing Is Murder: A True Crime Book Review.’”

“And that review,” said the therapist, “and your other work, will soon be read! Isn’t that exciting?”

“Sure,” said the issue. “But then what? There’ll be other issues, right? Issue nineteen, issue twenty. Issue twenty-five?”

“So what are you proposing?” asked the therapist, smiling weakly. “That you be the only issue of—”

“Of course not,” said the book. “But what makes me different? What makes me me?”

The doctor diagnosed Issue 18 with acute anxiety and prescribed it some literary medication.

Later that night, the issue went out with some friends—Exacting Clam 10 and the newest issues of Granta and The Paris Review—to get a few drinks and shoot some pool. “Dude, it’s going to be OK,” assured The Paris Review as they sat in their corner booth. “It’s not like you’re not the first journal to feel this way.”

“What meds did they prescribe you?” asked Granta.

“Me, I was always afraid,” said The Paris Review. “It makes you wonder.”

“What meds?” Granta asked again.

“An LSSRI—I don’t remember the name of it.” Issue 18 stared into his full glass of beer.

“L SSRI?” asked The Paris Review.

“It’s a literary selective serotonin—”

“The drops close together all over the pane,” mumbled Granta.

“Come on, man,” The Paris Review said, punching Issue 18 lightly. “Look at Clam Ten! He’s doing fine, right?”

“Every conversation is a condition to be explained,” shouted Exacting Clam 10 from the pool table, where he was preparing to take a shot. He took it, missed, and winced. “. . . Kafka’s observation that ‘A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.’”

“I was not drunk and I was not sober,” Granta hollered from a stool in the corner.

“Know what I think you need?” said The Paris Review to Issue 18. “A vacation. Get away for a few days. Quiet down all the noise, you know?”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Issue 18 said. And that’s exactly what he did: he found an AirBnB in Provincetown later that night and drove out to Cape Cod the next afternoon. After checking into his place, the issue walked down Commercial Street, treated himself to a good dinner, and fell asleep early. The next morning he was awake at 5 a.m. and out on the beach by first light. As the sun rose over the water, the book stood in the wet sand and let the waves lap the footers of his pages. Issue 18 had always loved the ocean—the rushy rhythm of the waves, the boats rocking gently in place.

Good morning, the book said to the sea.

The sea looked back at Exacting Clam 18, but didn’t say anything.

Can I ask you a question? said the issue.

The sea shrugged and said, Shoot.

I’ve been trying to—this sounds dumb—understand myself, the book said. What

I’m for.

What you’re for? the sea said.

You, the book continued, you’re full of life— 

OK, said the sea, but—

Me, I’m just a single issue, said the book.

Yeah but, it’s the same thing, the sea said. You see that, right?

It isn’t at all, said the book. I’m just an unrelenting catalogue of the faded, dead and dying, pop culture piledriven hard into the highbrow.

And—what else?

The book looked inside himself, read his own pages. Then he said, A stadium is ancient architecture for containing and apportioning fantasy.

And?

I am karaoke.

The sea smiled.

A world of lush green leaves and plants, said the book. A world where butterflies fluttered, danced, and pirouetted with magnetic charm.

See? the ocean said. A world of lush green leaves. A world.

Something settled inside Issue 18, like words affixing to a page. The book thanked the sea, turned back to the sand, walked up to his car and drove home.