The narratives of the world are numberless. Narrative is first and
foremost a prodigious variety of genres, themselves distributed
amongst different substances--as though any material were fit to
receive man's stories. Able to be carried by articulated language,
spoken or written, fixed or moving images, gestures, and the or-
dered mixture of all these substances; narrative is present in myth,
legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy,
mime, painting (think of Carpaccio Saint Ursula), stained glass
windows, cinema, comics, news item, conversation. Moreover, un-
der this almost infinite diversity of forms, narrative is present in
every age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very
history of mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people
without narrative. All classes, all human groups, have their nar-
ratives, enjoyment of which is very often shared by men with dif-
ferent, even opposing, . . . cultural backgrounds. Caring nothing for
the division between good and bad literature, narrative is inter-
national, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life
itself.

-- Roland Barthes, Image-Music-Text ¹

We never give up our predictions, or our attempts to plan the end
of the puzzle as we would have it.

-- Horace Newcomb ²

It is March 20, 1987. One Life to Live's heroine, Viki Buchanan ( Erika
Slezak) is on the operating table. Dr. Larry Wolek ( Michael Storm), is
"losing her!" Now--the camera pulls back--she's rising, she is above
herself, out-of-body. ³ And there she will be for eleven episodes, until

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