Laws of Impermanence by Ken Schneyer (Uncanny #36, September-October 2020) is set in a world where text is never permanent but constantly changes:
In his Physics, Aristotle declared that textual transmutation accelerates over time, and that its rate depends on the length of the manuscript. No one questioned this doctrine until after Gutenberg, when it was found that even moveable type metamorphosed on its racks. Galileo Galilei was the first to test Aristotle’s assertion by rigorous experiment, creating multiple copies of manuscripts of various length, as well as printed books, and examining them against correctors’ copies repeatedly over a period of a decade. He determined, first, that all texts transmute at the same rate, roughly one word out of every fifty in a year; second, that this rate does not change with time; and third, that all changes are what he called “sensible,” meaning that they fit logically within the framework of the larger document and do not betray themselves by presenting apparent gibberish. Indeed, it was his assertion that the Holy Bible would be no less prone to sensible transmutation than secular texts that eventually led to his censure and permanent house arrest.
But it was Isaac Newton who demonstrated that textual transmutation was an inherent property of writing itself, devising his three Laws of Impermanence and describing mathematically the forces that make them inevitable.
Interwoven with the conceptual development of this idea are two other narrative threads: one is a story of a lawyer and a client family who have only two original copies of their father’s will (both of which have suffered 25 years of transmutation); the other concerns a letter from the estranged wife of Philip, the grandfather of that family, to her friend:
I’m writing this in a hurry and I’m going to put it someplace safe. I hope to God that you’ll never have to read it, that I’ll be able to tell you in person. But I thought I’d better get it down on paper in case the worst happens.
I’m frightened that Philip wants to kill me. He threatened to do it right after the divorce, and I almost went to the police, but he never repeated the threat, and I thought I was safe.
But today I’m not so sure. A neighbor on the island who’d been down at the port said she saw a tall man with a beard and a coat that sounded just like Philip’s, and I’m afraid he’s come here to do what he said he’d do.
I’m going to try to get away right now, to hide somewhere on the other side of the island. But if, God forbid, I wind up dead, remember: it’s Philip who killed me.
During the story (spoiler) this letter metamorphoses into one that is more vague (this second version suggests that, if anything happens to her, Philip is “morally responsible”) and then, finally, into a suicide note.
This is a conceptually clever piece of ideation that is well developed (I liked all the scientific references to scientists we know for other discoveries) and has a neat twist ending. I suspect it will appeal to, among others, admirers of Ted Chiang’s work.
***+ (Good to Very Good). 4,100 words. Story link.