MDCLXXVI

This is the first sentence of this story. This is the second sentence. This is the title of this story which is also found several times in the story itself. This sentence is questioning the intrinsic value of the first two sentences. This sentence is to inform you in case you haven't already realized it that this is a self-referential story that is a story containing sentences that refer to their own structure and function. This is a sentence that provides an ending to the first paragraph. This is the first sentence of a new paragraph in a self-referential story. This sentence comments on the awkward nature of the self-referential narrative form while recognizing the strange and playful detachment it affords the writer. Introduces in this paragraph the device of sentence fragments. A sentence fragment. Another. Good device. Will be used more later. This is actually the last sentence of the story but has been placed here by mistake. This sentence overrides the preceding sentence by informing the reader (poor confused wretch) that this piece of literature is actually the Declaration of Independence but that the author in a show of extreme negligence (if not malicious sabotage) has so far failed to include even ONE SINGLE SENTENCE from that stirring document although he has condescended to use a small sentence FRAGMENT namely "When in the course of human events" embedded in quotation marks near the end of a sentence. And notice the sentence fragments? Good literary device. Will be used more later. This is the first sentence in a new paragraph. This is the last sentence in a new paragraph. This sentence can serve as either the beginning of the paragraph or end depending on its placement. This is the title of this story which is also found several times in the story itself. This sentence can serve as either the beginning of the paragraph or end depending on its placement. This is the title of this story which is also found several times in the story itself. This is ALMOST the title of the story which is found only once in the story itself. This sentence regretfully states that up to this point the self-referential mode of narrative has had a paralyzing effect on the actual progress of the story itself -- that is these sentences have been so concerned with analyzing themselves and their role in the story that they have failed by and large to perform their function as communicators of events and ideas that one hopes coalesce into a plot character development etc. -- in short the very RAISONS D'ETRE of any respectable hardworking sentence in the midst of a piece of compelling prose fiction. The purpose of this sentence (which can also serve as a paragraph) is to speculate that if the Declaration of Independence had been worded and structured as lackadaisically and incoherently as this story has been so far there's no telling what kind of warped libertine society we'd be living in now or to what depths of decadence the inhabitants of this country might have sunk even to the point of deranged and debased writers constructing irritatingly cumbersome and needlessly prolix sentences that sometimes possess the questionable if not downright undesirable quality of referring to themselves and they sometimes even become run-on sentences or exhibit other signs of inexcusably sloppy grammar like unneeded superfluous redundancies that almost certainly would have insidious effects on the lifestyle and morals of our impressionable youth because of sentences JUST LIKE THIS ONE which have no discernible goals or perspicuous purpose and just end up anywhere even in mid Bizarre. A sentence fragment. Another fragment. The purpose of this sentence is threefold: (1) to apologize for the unfortunate and inexplicable lapse exhibited by the preceding paragraph (2) to assure you the reader that it will not happen again and (3) to reiterate the point that these are uncertain and difficult times and that aspects of language even seemingly stable and deeply rooted ones such as syntax and meaning do break down. This sentence adds nothing substantial to the sentiments of the preceding sentence but merely provides a concluding sentence to this paragraph which otherwise might not have one. This sentence in a sudden and courageous burst of altruism tries to abandon the self-referential mode but fails. This sentence tries again but the attempt is doomed from the start. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. PARAGRAPH. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. The purpose. Of this paragraph. Is to apologize. For its gratuitous use. Of. Sentence fragments. Sorry. The purpose of this sentence is to apologize for the pointless and silly adolescent games indulged in by the preceding two paragraphs and to express regret on the part of us the more mature sentences that the entire tone of this story is such that it can't seem to communicate a simple albeit sordid scenario. This sentence wishes to apologize for all the needless apologies found in this story (this one included) which although placed here ostensibly for the benefit of the more vexed readers merely delay in a maddeningly recursive way the continuation of the by-now nearly forgotten story line. This sentence is bursting at the punctuation marks with news of the dire import of self-reference as applied to sentences a practice that could prove to be a veritable Pandora's box of potential havoc for if a sentence can refer or allude to itself why not a lowly subordinate clause perhaps THIS VERY CLAUSE Or this sentence fragment? Or three words? Two words? ONE? Perhaps it is appropriate that this sentence gently and with no trace of condescension reminds us that these are indeed difficult and uncertain times and that in general people just aren't nice enough to each other and perhaps we whether sentient human beings or sentient sentences should just TRY HARDER. I mean there IS such a thing as free will there HAS to be and this sentence is proof of it! Neither this sentence nor you the reader is completely helpless in the face of all the pitiless forces at work in the universe. We should stand our ground face facts take Mother Nature by the throat and just TRY HARDER. By the throat. Harder. Harder harder;