word of the day: reptation

In the short story “Moebius Strip” the Argentine author Julio Cortazar depicts a person struggling in a sort of afterlife:

“Little by little (little by little in a condition outside of time? a manner of speaking) other states were presenting themselves, had perhaps already been presented, although already would mean before and there was no before; now (or any now either) a wind state prevailed and now a crawling state … [imagine] a caterpillar crawling over a leaf suspended in the air, passing over its faces and passing again without the slightest sight or touch or limit, infinite Moebius strip reptation to the edge of a face to arrive at or already to be on the opposite side and to return ceaselessly from one side to the other, a very slow and painful reptation there where there was no measure of slowness or suffering but where one was reptation and being reptation was slowness and suffering.”

definition: The act of creeping.

source: dictionary.com