"What Actually (if fictionally) Happened" is not a story

And why the cartographer's perfect dream is perfectly useless

You may remember that back in April, I kicked off our regular Wednesday Chat for supporters with a question about sentence-wrangling - and an example from what wasn’t yet Episode 2 of All Things Invisible.

These were some of the possibilities I’d come up with and what, I asked, did Itchy supporters think?

1. When we got to the glass doors I realised that a man who'd been sitting on one of the bar seats had somehow slipped, and as he fell he must have clutched at a table, because that had fallen too.

2. Through the glass of the door I saw a man who had evidently slipped getting off one of the bar seats, and in falling he'd also taken a table with him.

3. I saw first through the glass of the door that a man had slipped getting off one of the bar seats, and then that he'd somehow taken a table with him.

4. A glance through the glass of the door showed that a man had slipped getting off one of the bar seats, and somehow taken a table with him.

Photo by Suhash Villuri on Unsplash

Mostly to avoid plot-spoilers, I didn’t give the surrounding text , and so although lots of people had lots of great responses, comments and possible adjustments, some of them were trying to make things clear which in context were already clear. For reference, this is the context:

I was passing the Aerodeck Bar on the way down again, still lightheaded from surviving, when from just inside came a thud and a series of vast crashes.

A glance through the glass of the door showed that a man had slipped getting off one of the bar seats, and somehow taken a table with him. Yellow light slid crookedly over his dark shoulders and showed one side of the ravaged face of Dominic McDermott.

I reached him almost before the barman had, and together we got him up again and slumped in a chair.