V.

 

It seems as if the master is getting into the spirit of posting quotations in a big way.

There are curtains, black and dark green textured with lumpy cotton hanging

heavily to the floor at my favorite looking out of window. I notice pinned

on the curtain it looks like a piece of a page torn out of a book making

fluttering noises, flickering in the breeze, some sort of trapped

insect. I pull it towards my face and apply my nose, sniffing.

The master has taken to ripping up

books in order to attract

me - it smells

almost edible.

Although I am not partial to reading books this does not prevent me from enjoying
their sensual qualities. And now I wonder what new phantasm has provoked this
destructive behavior, so of course I look at the fragment which has this to say:

"I remember that I am supposed to be a man and consciousness and I focus my eyes
and the print reappears and the words of the poor book are saying, 'The world as God
has made it'

and there are no words in my pitying heart to express the knowless loveliness of the
trance there was before I read those words, I had no such idea that there was a world."

 

For a moment I stand at the window, my head cocked. I can see the street and other
buildings below, but they aren't street and other buildings while I think, they are a flat
vision of shapes, shadows and colours, not even an idea of a city.

Then, I begin to cry because this piece of torn book
makes me realise the master loves me very much.

My eyes squinch up, jaws open wide and stretch
these lips back over jagged even teeth in a deeply
satisfying yawn, and I retire to the sofa, curl up,
and go to sleep.

<-- scene IV

--> scene VI.

pre-face