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www.ATIBOOK.irFiction 115unplugged. She started off by unplugging her mother; then she went onfrom there. It was like a spree, I guess. She said she thought she wasdoing everyone a favour She said she hoped somebody’d do it for her, ifthey cared about her.’(Ibid: 37)These narratives are lifted from our current narrative culture about medical care gonewrong. Jack’s story here acts as a new trigger, releasing Iris’s own insistence that sheshould be ‘unplugged’ and that he would do it if he cared about her. It is this turn in theconversation that leads husband and wife to discuss an eventuality neither before hasconsidered. Would they? Would they care enough? Jack’s answer is straightforward:‘Don’t unplug me. It’s as simple as that.’ Iris, however, makes the opposite request,which Jack reluctantly accepts:I’ll do it for you. I’ll pull the plug, or have it pulled, if I ever think it’snecessary. But what I said about my plug still stands. Now I don’t want tohave to think about this stuff ever again. I don’t even want to have to talkabout it again. I think we’ve said all there is to say on the subject. We’veexhausted every angle. I’m exhausted.’Iris grins. ‘OK,’ she says.(Ibid: 43)The following night, while Jack answers the same wrong number yet again, Iris contentsherself with unplugging the phone, though this word, so potent in the story, isn’t used byCarver in its last lines:‘The gall of that woman,’ Iris says.My hands are shaking. I think my voice is doing things. But while I’mtrying to make myself understood, my wife moves quickly and bendsover; and that’s it. The line goes dead, and I can’t hear anything.(Ibid: 44)Switching off, unplugging, is the solution. This and only this will kill off the story: nomore calls, no more conversation, no more woman wanting Bud, no more Bud, nothing.Narrative Image and Progression in Longer FictionWe can see how in the two short stories above, the active present where events unfoldand reach a climax is supplemented by a background of other narrative, memory, dreamimpressions,stories in newspapers, references to untold stories. In longer fiction readersare usually prepared to move through a good deal more of this supplementary narrativebackground. The central characters might be involved in various side-issues, minor butsignificant. The point of this material is to create a pervasive image or impression of lifeas it is being lived in this particular region, city, culture or, group, under the usualconditions. The narrative image is made up of these supplements, each of which can beentertaining, colourful and suspenseful in their own right. But it’s out of these, at some