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  • 25-MAR-2025 | Excerpt from “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut

25-MAR-2025 | Excerpt from “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut

Author

Dan Bogachek
March 25, 2025

You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and flip open the laptop.

Or… what if:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 9:27 — final draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

Copygloss handled it. Before you left for the date, actually.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].

Excerpt from “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut

Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.

Jonah — John — if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still — not because I have been unlucky for others, but because somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places at certain times, without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And, according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there.

Listen:

When I was a younger man — two wives ago, 250,000 cigarettes ago, 3,000 quarts of booze ago.

When I was a much younger man, I began to collect material for a book to be called The Day the World Ended.

The book was to be factual. 🏁 

The voice feels so alive. Abrupt in places, rambling in others.

Numbers for specificity along with repetition. Sinks home the passage of time, with some texture on what kind of time and what kind of individual passed it.