"The story that Aristaeus was scratching on potsherds?"
" Broken pieces want to come together," said the brain, "they want to contain something. I see Aristaeus with his broken bits of fired clay, each one only big enough for a word or two. ORPHEUS, he has written on one piece, THE TORTOISE on another. As soon as these words are put next to each other there want to be more words: THE ROAD; THE RIVER; EURYDICE. Or perhaps EURYDICE is the first word and in the empty space next to it there appears THE TORTOISE. Or first THE TORTOISE, yes of course. THE TORTOISE first because it is the centre of the universe, because it is the world-child; THE TORTOISE first and then EURYDICE who is again the world-child-tortoise, EURYDICE whose loss is the judgement, whose loss is the reckoning and the punishment.

From The Medusa Frequency by Russell Hoban