52

There are certain memories that do not live within the fish that is his hand. He will have to go elsewhere to find those memories. The house in Maryland, for example, had a front yard, but he cannot see it now. He does not yet see his mother, either, but he knows that she was there. But not by looking at the fish. He knows his mother was there, but he knows because of a non-memory. A memory outside of a memory. A memory he knows he is not having, and he knows of it by its absence in the place of his own memory outside of the fish where he has seen her. Damn it all. Perhaps the girl will show him this memory if he can find her. But she is not in the fish, either. And this he knows as surely as he knows that he is hungry, once again. He will eat after he meets with The Committee. The handfish is starting to move, and as it does, as it points the way to the meeting place, it no longer yields him memories. It will, again, however. And this is something else that he knows.

51

Another time, his father had decided that the two of them would pick an entire bushel of crabs. All by themselves. They had never picked a crab, before. A bushel, he now knows, is a hell of a lot of crabs. But they sat there, in the living room, newspapers strewn all about the floor, and spent the day picking bluecrabs. They didn't know that there was a particular way that one picked bluecrabs economically so as to expend the least effort for the most meat. This was something they had to learn. And they learned it, more or less, over the span of hours. Not much meat comes from a crab, at least not if you have any idea of what you are doing. And if you do know what you are doing, it only seems as though you have picked a large amount if you compare it with the amount someone manages to get through having no idea what they are doing. The long and the short of it was that father and son persevered through an entire bushel of crabs. Suffice it to say that they never picked that many crabs, again. Ever.

50

He and his father were of similar humor. When they had first moved down there, the two of them had heard, somewhere, the state song of Maryland. The melody stayed in their minds (it was the same as "Oh Christmas Tree"), but the words, except for the title, were soon lost. No matter. They could sing the song using only those words, and it would come out just fine. Often, when father and son were out in the estuary to the north of their property chicken-necking bluecrabs on a piece of packing string, they would break into the song, more or less simultaneously, laughing while doing so, and doubtless losing crabs that they otherwise would have been able to pull up:
Oh Maryland, my Maryland,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Oh Maryland, my Maryland
Maryland, my Maryland --
Oh Maryland, my Maryland,
Maryland, my Maryland --
Oh Maryland, my Maryland,
Maryland, my Maryland!

49

Neither he nor his father were fishermen. Although they lived on the water, they did not take advantage of it as much as they could have. The boat they built was small. They only dared take it out on the Bay when the water was glassy. By and large, the Bay's waters were choppy and much too dangerous for their boat. So, apart from the handful of times they had sailed on the waters in back of their house, they had sailed on a nearby river. They had another boat, as well. An even smaller one of the kind they call a John Boat. It was made of some form of corrogated metal and had a flat bottom. This boat was no better for the Bay than the other, but it was much better for the estuary slightly to the north of their property. He and his father would take the John Boat to the estuary and try to catch crabs using chicken necks attached to string. They didn't tell people much about this because "chicken necker" was a derogatory term to the watermen in the area. And, when they lived down there, the vast majority of people you spoke with were either watermen or related to watermen, so word got around. If you told one person you used chicken necks to catch bluecrabs, it would not be long before everyone knew. And things like this are important to a young boy in a small town. Especially if he is not related to anyone except his immediate family.
And yet, he truly enjoyed catching bluecrabs with his father by dangling chicken legs. The way you did it was you felt a pull on the string and you pulled back as though you were not pulling back, because if it felt in the least way as though you were pulling back, the crab would know it and you'd lose him. But when you got him, you knew you got him. You got on a roll.
And when you got on a roll, you knew that, too, and you could never fail.

48

Down through the hand that is a fish he sees again the house on the shores of Maryland. He sees the boathouse and the boat that he and his father had built one Summer because his father had gotten it into his head that it would be a good thing for a father and a son to build a boat, together. And it was a good thing. He and his father bonded. That's the word they used. A bond. A connection. Stronger than a connection. The desire, fulfilled by shared activity, of uniting, of becoming one. Atonement. At-one-ment. He cannot see his mother, but he knows she must be in the house. There is a species of anxiety about the house, however. Perhaps it is in the physical environment of the property. The Chesapeake is unremitting in its erosive attack on the shoreline. When he first moved there, he used to go down to the shore to hunt fiddler crabs. There were always scores of them. By the time he moved, there were none. The erosion felled a half-dozen trees. Nothing did any good. He spent hour upon hour with his father, the two of them laboring beneath the Summer sun to place large rocks along the shoreline in order to stay the erosion. Eventually, his father ended up buying enormous chunks of broken pavement from the county, but even this did not work. His father envisioned the house itself falling into the Bay.

47

Memories are not linear, he realizes. They are concentric. One burrows into a memory. There are times when memories house themselves in the senses -- in a sound heard, in a vision seen, in an odor perceived. Memories do not reside in time. They are fully recalled in an instant. And they are private within the chambers of the mind. It is our choice whether we share them with others, but when we do, they become but poor reproductions. It is a mistake, however, to say that our kept memories -- the ones we do not share -- are themselves reproductions. They are not. Instead, they are the only things we can say, for sure, that we alone create. And he has created a kingdom of memories within the fish that has been made of his hand.

46

He stands looking at the hand that is a fish. He knows he is late for some meeting of some committee, and he knows that it has been his initiation into the committee that has, in an absurd way, enabled him to look at his own hand as no longer his own but as something outside of himself. As a fish. And he doesn't care that he is not hurrying to this meeting whose nature and content he doesn't know. He feels the urgency, but he doesn't pay it mind. Instead, he looks at the hand that was a hand and still is a hand but is now a fish. The fish makes everything real. Fish blood. Fish slime. Fish stench. Strong, gasping, fish. A muscle straining against its own suffocation out of water.

45

He remembers going fishing with his father.
He hasn't remembered his father in a very long time.
When he went fishing with his father, he caught a trout.
They took it home and ate it.
His father cooked it on a skillet over an open flame.
The fish meat was orange.
It tasted wonderful.
He looks at the hand he is holding.
He thinks: I have caught another fish.

44

The voice on the other end of the line pauses. Then it says, with hostility, You're new to this Committee... aren't you. It is more of a statement than a question. And, as a statement, it is an accusation.
Do you not tell committee newcomers where your committee meets? he asks. His body is thrilling to a rising contempt of his own that, while somewhat surprizing him -- for he is not a contemptuous man, by general temperament -- nonetheless feels appropriate and wonderful.
We do not, says the voice. There is an undeniable authority in its tone. It is the responsibility of the committee member, newcomer or not, to find the meeting place and to be there on time.
And am I, then, to assume, he says in response, that it is also up to me as a newcomer to know that a meeting has been scheduled in the first place?
Not only that, says the voice, but the time.
And how, he says, am I supposed to know these things?
You are hunter, are you not?
That's what they call me. Jeesh, he thinks... this is sounding like a bad cowboy movie...
Well then, says the voice, HUNT for the meeting. The time I'm spending on the phone with you is taking valuable time away from our meeting. And we have a great deal to discuss on today's agenda. I will tell you this, however. If you miss this meeting, it will look very... very... bad.
With this, the line goes dead.
He stares at the phone, dumbly, for a moment or two and then puts it back in his pocket.
He looks around.
Down on the ground, he sees something he has not before seen. He walks up to it.
It is a bloody hand. His, perhaps... The hand is positioned in a fist, with the index finger extended.
Warding off a gag reflex, he reaches down and picks up the hand. He walks in the direction in which the index finger is pointing. When he has gone a hundred paces or so, the finger bends to point in another direction. He turns in that direction, and the finger straightens.
He still feels the visceral disgust, but he can't deny that something about this, down deep, is pretty neat.

43

He has not previously been told of a meeting, of course, despite the contempt of the voice on the phone. (And, anyway, who keeps putting things in his pockets? He has no idea, and feels a little violated. But he can stomach this level of violation, can't he? After all, he thinks, he has had his hand cut off. Everything else is peanuts.) He decides to act as he imagines committee members who are called to be reminded of meetings act. With corresponding, yet greater contempt. And it would, in part, be an act, for although most people who participate in meetings complain bitterly and often about how much they hate them, most of those people -- himself included -- at some deep and hidden part of their psyche actually rather enjoy them because it gives them a sense of being needed. A sense, perhaps beyond this, of being able at some point to throw their weight around. And he has to admit this to himself -- of late he has had absolutely no opportunities whatsoever to throw his weight around. And, so far as he is concerned, it has gotten damn' well and high time he was given such an opportunity. For he will take concerted advantage of this opportunity, and will damn' well throw around whatever weight he has, and, should he find himself with no weight to throw around will damn' well do whatever it takes to find himself some weight that he will be able to throw around and, having found that weight, will begin throwing it!
I was never told of a meeting for today, he says with an appropriate sneer.
There was a silence at the other end.
Oh, he thinks, this was going to be good.

42

once we have have swum we I can go back to doing what I've been called here to do. His mind is coming back to him. His thinking is becoming more organized. Less abstract, less stream-of-consciousness oriented. More intelligible and less impressionistic. The sea. Where has this come from? For he is, indeed, standing in front of a sea. What has become of his sanctuary? Where is the church? Where are the priests? A tired, yet recurring question: Where is he? His hand is itching. There is no longer pain. Or, if there is, it is the ... the non-hallucinatory kind. Why has his hand been cut off? Ah yes: he has joined The Committee. Okay, well, ummm... Why has his hand been cut off? He has returned to asking questions of himself, of his situation. He has returned to thinking of himself in the first person singular rather than in the third person plural. He is not, after all, an aristocrat to declare himself through the Royal We. Then why has he been doing so? Hunter. The Committee. Where is The Committee? Why has he joined The Committee? He remembers: He has joined The Committee such that he may, through some level of maneuvering, become a member of The Order. And he wishes to join The Order why, exactly? Well, to be able to ask questions, apparently, without being screamed at by huge horrible monsters. But he has joined The Committee, and has still been screamed at by huge horrible monsters and, what's worse, is that he has lost a hand in the process.
This sucks. Where the hell is he? What has become of his sanctuary? And let's not forget about the hunger. He has eaten he knows not how long ago, with the priests, but now the hunger is returning. Has his sanctuary ended?
A buzzing comes from a pocket in his pants. It is a phone. Somehow. He takes it out of his pocket and answers it. An officious, irritated voice accosts him. Where are you? We have a meeting, this morning, and you are late.

41

By the time he feels the pain, he has begun to accept it and to understand it. Whatever it is that has been done to his mind has helped him to accept and to understand. He is unable to describe or to explain what has happened to him, but describing and explaining are non-essential pursuits that are, at best, parallel to acceptance and understanding. His stump appears to have healed a little. Skin has grown over the open wound where his hand had been severed from his arm. But the healing has not been complete: there is discoloration and a bit of bloating and some other nasty stuff going on that will make him concerned about infection. But he will only be concerned once his mind has come back to normal. Now, all merges as a blissful one-ness; he is fascinated with everything but concerned with nothing. He is thinking about the sea and the sea and the sea is merged with everything everywhere hiding and revealing and soon I we will swim and then

40

and that's where everything was and is down by the sea where life began and begins and gets back to and where he is finding himself and it yawns wide before him and he can't see across it and the waves are smooth hills being born rising and falling not dying but being assumed back into the sea and all that is beneath it and it covers up all, does the sea, it will cover up you, it will cover up me and peacefully peacefully you will see all that ever was and all that will ever be

39

spoke volumes for the clergy and those three monstrous fellows and their monstrous fellow the one the all the none for The Magnificence and the girl and all that follows gotta give 'em a hand and go back to Maryland Maryland? My Maryland? and make the crabcakes they make there which they make other places but they don't make Maryland crab cakes and I gotta hand it to them and I followed her down through the library and into the sea down through the library and into the sea down into the library and what's a library but a forest a wood a tree cemetery and I went into the library the woods and down into the sea and that's where the house was down into the sea

38

and when you recognize that The Magnificence is the magnificence because it has the power when it speaks through someones head and tells them to do what they then go and do and it is beautiful and there needs be no other truth than that and we find The Magnificence when we come out of the darkness because The Magnificence is dancing while standing still at the same time being many parts and one body but not like that because The Magnificence is really not like anything at all even in our head even in our body even in our spirit but it is at the same time itself and itself alone and needs nothing else and I had to go find it in the library it sent me there to the library so I so we so that it could be found in the book that we that I read and melted away into so that it all made sense when I had seen the girl and followed her and then it

37

He watches himself:
get out of bed
walk to the window
look out the window
see a vast flat landscape
lit by a languid yet persistent sun
find a door next to the window
walk out the door
past the priests
past the behemoth
past the church
past the library
past the girl
past the town
past The Magnificence
and into the darkness
and walk past the darkness
and come out on its other side
and back into the world of memories
that he had not yet remembered
and that did not, still, avail themselves to him
and he continued to watch himself
and his progress
with a patience
that he felt
was beautiful

36

It is possible to live a life in which one's conscious awareness of the world is entirely physical. It is possible to be aware of the world through one's open nerves, one's working muscles, one's raw skin, one's naked hunger, one's urging thirst, one's soothing comfort, one's rushing pain, one's creeping fatigue, one's pumping invigoration, one's mindless desire. Happiness and fulfillment don't exist as part of this awareness because they are neither functional nor appropriate. Happiness and fulfillment are inefficient: satisfaction does the bodily work of both words. He knows this, now, not because he is thinking it but because his body tells him so. His own body is a masterful poet of non-symbolic language. Obey the body. He looks up at the ceiling and smiles in a rapture that can only come with the absence of thought. Thought is near, however, but it is mercifully slow. He can sense its presence and is delighted at how handily he can avoid it. He is completely satisfied with everything.

35

It is a strange thing to lead a life of hallucination. It is perhaps a thing stranger still to lead a life in which hallucination and its counterpart share an equal role. He is somewhere, in a bed, looking at a wall. He looks at the wall with the meditative yet not quite connected look a sleeper just waking gives the objects in the small world around him. This is nice, he thinks. The world is a simple place. All a person has to do is lie here and, whether awake or asleep or somewhere in beween, be. He looks at the raw stump of his handless forearm. There's no need to get upset about such things, he thinks.

34

The pain does not begin right away. He looks at the behemoth and feels an adrenaline rush that doesn't quite allow his mind to get a handle on what has just happened.
He sees the creature transform back into the three priests. They look at him as people look at small children who have scraped a knee.
Oh dear, says Laurence. I see we have a new committee member. Here -- let me do that up for you... The priest undoes the sash of his cassock (which, strangely, has now reappeared on his person, completely intact -- and there is no evidence on any of the priests that they had been transformed into a monster made of solid, craggy rock material) and wraps it around the stump which by now is coursing with bright red arterial blood.
He has gone into shock.

33

Let's see... let's see... let's see... says the behemoth and then repeats the phrase a dozen or so more times such that he wonders whether the creature is actually a machine that has malfunctioned.
Let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see...
Gradually, the words slur together into a reptilian sibilance:
lesseeleseeleseelesseeleseeseeseeseeseeseeseesee
A rocky index finger flips the pages of the book (miniscule in the creature's hands).
Finally: Oh! oh oh oh oh oh! Hear it is! Hear it is! Now, says the behemoth, eyeing him over the bifocals, you say you... wish to... join the committee, do you?
Yes, says the man, now barely able to control the urge to call this creature an uncivil name. What must I do?
Do?
Do!
Oh, you don't really need to do anything. Let me see your left hand.
He holds his hand up to the creature.
In a motion so fast he hardly registers it, the creature produces a sword and cuts the hand off a few inches above his wrist.
WELCOME, NEW COMMITTEE MEMBER!!! screams the creature.

32

INSOLENCE!!! bellows the behemoth. NO ONE MAY JOIN THE ORDER WHO IS NOT ALREADY A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE!!! IT IS FROM THE RANKS OF THE COMMITTEE THAT THE ORDER IS CONSTITUTED!!!
The behemoth stands over him. Lava drools from its mouth in long, unbroken strands.
And? he says.
AND... AND... AND NOTHING!!!!! screams the behemoth.
They look at one another, he and the behemoth.
Why, then, I would like to join the committee, he says, simply.
The behemoth gives him a look of... of what... of... bewilderment? It cocks one eyebrow-like ridge and then, straightening from its menacing hunch, cocks the other eyebrow-like ridge. It then cocks its entire head and says, much more softly:
You want to join the committee?
Yes, I do.
Well, umm, that is, says the behemoth... Are you sure?
Quite.
Well, repeats the behemoth, I'm not sure exactly how to respond to this... Nobody has ever wanted to join the committee...!
The creature whips out a pair of bifocals which it places upon its gargantuan head. It then reaches into an unspeakable fold of skin (or whatever) and produces a book. It flips through the book while muttering this and that. At one point, it looks down at him and says,
Wants to join the committee... Most irregular... Most irregular, indeed!

31

As he sits there, the big earth volcano thing made of priests growling over him, he is blessed with an oddly calm bit of self-awareness. He can see himself in this situation, and he feels a bit of detachment from it. I am a psychopath, he thinks. I don't feel normal human emotions -- like terror... I compartmentalize... I separate... But that's not it... I'm not a psychopath... I do feel fear, now. I have never not felt fear since I came out of the darkness... But the fear I feel now is like... like an instruction manual... It is here to inform me... It has informed me, and now I am reacting according to its instructions. And reacting to its instructions means that I no longer feel the fear...
The thing formed when he decided to ask a question. He has hit a nerve, evidently. The thing feels defensive. Threatened. Only members of the order can ask a question of the committee? Okay then...
I want to join the order, he says.

30

The three priests sit, inanimate and inscrutible as before.
I am done telling stories! he repeats, his voice louder. What the hell's the matter with these weirdos? Listen guys, he says, an acidic anger dissolving the politeness he has hitherto been tending with care given his ignorance of what might actually be threatening him in this bizarre rectory that has promised him sanctuary from who knows what... No more of my answering your questions. Now, I want you to answer mine. First off: What is...
He does not finish his question. In one volcanic motion -- such is the adjective that comes to his mind: volcanic -- the priests explode from their seats and rise before him with the roaring violence of an angry, unsettled earth. They merge, bodies into body. A behemoth stands before him, raging. A voice, the sound of an earthquake, threatens to deafen his ears: SILENCE, HUNTER! MEMBERS OF THE ORDER MAY ALONE ASK QUESTIONS OF THE COMMITTEE!!!
He leans back in his chair, a tad stunned. My goodness...

29

While expounding upon the sordid tales of Don Napoleon's activities in organized crime, a quite unrelated feeling of dread begins to seep into his mind. He is here for sanctuary. His -- hosts? -- the priests who are giving him sanctuary -- are listening to these stories... He looks down at his plate. There is still a lot of food. He supposes he has been too busy with his stories to eat. But he also remembers eating steak, and now there is some sort of fish. Or is it chicken? The wine glass continues to be full. He takes a sip of wine. A bite of food. He sets his fork down.
I am finished telling stories, he says.

28

He continues with the rise of Napoleon the Cat through a recount of the various battles of a glorious campaign. The priests continue to stare. He decides to embellish. Rather than have Napoleon declare himself emperor, he has Napoleon become a leader of organized crime. Perhaps not that much of an embellishment, he thinks. Napoleon, the emperor of France (Chartreux, in cat terms) becoming Don Napoleon of _____? He can't think of a mafia territory that would sound good with Cat as a substitute prefix. It doesn't matter. He doesn't know, for sure, whether the three priests know about the real Napoleon. Who, in the world, doesn't know of Napoleon? And, of course, that's just it: who in the world he comes from? And are we, he wonders mutely, in the world he comes from?
Oh, what the hell. He tells of Don Napoleon's cornering the construction industry through "persuasive" dealings with other "colleagues" in the waste disposal management industry, thus building an empire which, though not in the habit of calling attention to itself, is nevertheless ... not to be ignored...
If the priests object to, or even recognize, the, ah, shifting of historical narrative consistency, their faces remain inscrutable.

27

These early battles over, Napoleon began to rise in eminence among the feline ranks. He came to command, and in this command grew bold, though small in stature. He nurtured within his furry breast a vision of a glorious empire of Chartreux with himself as emperor. In his ambition, he mustered forces and waged a furious campaign against each and every other tribe. As a result, he achieved a series of military victories unmatched in Cat-dom even to this day.
One moment, young man, splutters the buzzard, suddenly coming to life. Cat-dom?
Yes, he says. Like King-dom. Like Christen-dom.
Excuse me, continues the buzzard, a-splutter and brow furrowed. But I can hardly see that what you are engaged in is the story of Christendom! You speak of cats!
He speaks of Cat-dom, says Laurence.
Exactly! says the old priest. Now I ask you again, hunter... what is Cat-dom?
It is the story, he says, of the tribes of Napoleon. Napoleon the Cat. Of his glorious rise and ignominious decline. Shall I continue?
Absolutely, say all three priests at once. And with this, they once again become as statues.
Why these three weirdos are so interested in this story, he cannot guess. He has some more food on his plate, however, and has the opportunity to drink lots of free wine. Lots more, that is, he thinks, smiling.
Well then, he says...

26

Okay, then, he says. Napoleon's tribes consist of a vast array of different kinds of cats from Russian and Prussian Blues to Austrian tabbies. Napoleon, himself, as I have said, was a Chartreux -- a distinguished French breed with vague aristocratic ancestry. Before Napoleon came onto the scene, each of these tribes were separate, and all fought with each other. The tribe to which Napoleon belonged in those days before empire, though small, was remarkably agressive against the other tribes and, as a young kitten, Napoleon was involved in several battles with The Prussian Blues and the Austrian Tabbies and then later with the Russian Blues. These tribes were attempting to stop the foment and advancement of the Chartreux revolution. It was in these battles that Napoleon began to distinguish himself.
He stops. Obviously, some of his education has returned to him. This makes him happy but it also makes him a little wary because he still does not know why he knows what he knows. The knowledge is there, but there is not contextual cohesion that he can define with certainty as "his life."
He looks at the priests. They continue to stare at him. He wonders if there is a Frenchman among the three. It would truly be unfortunate were they Russian, Prussian and Austrian.
He continues his story of feline revolution.

25

He stops speaking and looks at the three priests. They may as well be statues. They do not move. They say nothing. They regard him with severe stares that radiate from eyes that are carved from wood. He decides to wait them out. He waits for many minutes. He continues to wait; they continue to watch him, inanimately. He remembers how they had waited for him to respond, previously. They wait until their question is answered. He is telling them about a cat whose existence he believes he is making up. And their stares shake him from his narrative thrust. He could move. He could get up and leave this place. He knows this, but he finds that he does not want to move. He wants to tell them about the cat. But he cannot think of anything further to tell them. So, he concludes his story of the cat, Napoleon, rather lamely. Napoleon lived to be eighteen years old before he died, peacefully in his sleep. The stares continue. The end, he says. The mouth of the buzzard priest moves enough to speak. No, says the mouth. Tell us about the tribes of Napoleon.

24

Well, hunter began, not too long ago, I had a cat named Napoleon. Napoleon was a big Chartreux who weighed about twenty pounds. I named him Napoleon because when we first got him, he was the smallest kitten we had ever seen. But he had a ferocious, conquering attitude. I found him underneath the front porch of an apartment where I was living at the time. He had been left there, presumably because he was the runt of the litter. He was a feral cat, and I think he was part of a large tribe of cats that roamed the neighborhood. Napoleon was never quite tamed. He grew enormous, as I say. Although I tried to keep him from going outdoors, he always found ways to get out of the house. Every now and again, I would look out a window, and he would be out there there with some other cat from the neighborhood. I figured a member of the tribal family -- a relative of some sort that was checking in on him.

23

The content of their discussion, however, is rather nonsensical -- or so it appears to him. They ask him if he has ever had a dog. His memory, however, is not sufficient to answer this question. As yet, the only memories he has of what might have been his previous life before the darkness are of the house and the girl.
I don't know.
You don't know if you've ever had a dog? asks the buzzard.
No.
Have you ever had a cat? I had a cat once. Laurence, here [pointing to the first priest he had seen at the church] hates cats, don't you Laurence?
I never said I hated cats, says Laurence. I said I was allergic to them.
Same thing, dear child.
I had a guinea pig as a child, says Laurence. I was quite fond of him. Boethius, I named it. Alas, however, he was not to be. My father decapitated him with a pair of hedge clippers.
Guinea pigs are a delicacy in Mexico, says the third priest. I had the pleasure of eating one, once.
The two other priests regard the third one with looks of abject horror.
I had a cat once, he says.
You had a cat, once, hunter?
Yes.
He is startled at the utter change in the demeanor of the priests from jolly and rather silly to completely serious and inquisitorial.
Tell us everything about the cat you say you once had, hunter.
He starts to laugh but checks himself. The priests are looking at him as though they await an answer to the most grave question concerning matters of state.

22

They all go into another room -- a recreational room with a pool table, a number of stuffed leather chairs, a humidor, a bar with a stock of fine spirits on display, and tables for dining and card playing. The buzzard priest waves his hand across the room and says, simply, that they are for hunter's leisure.
Thank you, he says. He pauses. I hope I'm not being rude... This is all wonderful... but... could I have something to eat?
Oh! says the buzzard with an obvious red flush of embarrassment. Of course you may! Of course you may! Come -- let us all sit! He directs him to a table, and they all sit. Immediately, a servant appears from behind a curtain at the edge of the room. We will eat now, says the elder priest. And... he continues with a bubbling chuckle and a wink, Bring us in some ice water and some wine such that we may sup -- such that we may [chuckle, wink] commune, if you will -- with our guest!
The servant disappears behind the curtain. A moment or two passes, the food and drink arrives, the buzzard priest blesses the meal, and they begin to eat. He tries his best not to bolt down his food, but it is difficult. He is famished. Yet the priests insist, as he supposes is their right, to draw him into conversation. And he supposes it is his obligation, as guest of sanctuary, to respond.

21

Hunter. Although he had not known that this word would be used, he is not surprised to hear it. Hunter fits. Nor does he need to consider the question of the priest.
I want sancuary, he says.
And then something else pops into his mind.
He tells the three priests: I have been to the library. The Magnificence sends me forth. I have seen the girl.
Such words. Who talks like this? he wonders.
The middle priest, a wizened, old man with a nose like a buzzard's beak, leans backward, slightly, in his chair.
We will give you sanctuary.
After the priest tells him this, there is an uncomfortable silence that lasts almost long enough to be comical.
I am hungry, and I am thirsty, he says.
Immediately, all three priests smile at him. Their manner is changed utterly. Why then, you will eat and you will drink! Says the priest he had met first. We could play cards! says the second priest. Tell me, says the old priest, do you play Whist?

20

The rectory is lavishly decorated. There are busts on pedestals along the wall of the hallway -- of various famed religious figures, he guesses. A cleaning woman, who is busy dusting them, stops momentarily and bows her head when she sees the priest. The priest gives no indication that he has seen her. The priest takes him into a large room. A board room, from the looks of it. Large rectangular table to seat a dozen or more.
The priest points to a chair midway down the the table. Sit, says the priest. I will be with you in a moment.
He sits. The priest leaves the room. He waits a good while. The priest returns accompanied by two other priests, one of whom he has already seen in the church. They sit, side by side, directly across from him.
What have you to tell us, hunter? says the middle priest whom he has not seen.

19

Two priests come into the church through a side door. They genuflect and attend to some items on the altar. They walk down the center aisle of the church and pass him without paying him any particular mind. One priest leaves the church while another stays toward the back taking hymnals from a box and putting them in the pews. He decides to stand and approach the priest.
Father, he says. May I talk with you?
The priest looks at him. It is a business look. Not terribly priestly, he thinks.
Confessions are on Saturdays, says the priest.
I don't want to confess anything, he says.
Then, how can I help you?
I'd like to talk with a priest, he says, ad libbing a bit. He doesn't know what people say when they talk to priests, as he has not spoken with many in his life. Maybe at a wedding. As a young child.
I'd like to talk with a priest, he repeats, but I'd rather not talk in the church.
The priest gives him a slightly irritated look. The look then softens. He puts a hymnal in a slot in the back of the pew and looks at him.
Come with me, then, says the priest.
He follows the priest out of the church and into an attached building.

18

He can tell that she is there, but he cannot see her. The ranch house sits on a comfortable bit of land, and beyond this land is a large expanse of water. He cannot see the opposite shore. Now, he is in the living room of the house. There is a homey feel to it: knit afghans, crocheted pillows, comfortable couch and loveseat. A bay window. By the look of the various wood work about the house, someone is handy with carpentry projects. They say that memories do not include smells, but there is a gentle aroma of cooking meat. Thanksgiving. Or a homecoming. Or some other family event. He remembers football. Not terribly exciting memories, he thinks. And maybe this is the point of these memories. And she is there. He cannot yet see her. The memory ends for the moment, and he opens his eyes.

17

Sanctuary...? From... a threat. Safety... from something. Protection...
The word "Sanctuary" suffuses through his body with even more insistence than does hunger.
He walks up the front steps of the church and pulls open the huge darkwood doors. He enters the building and the word "Sanctuary," though still there, is now a word of relief. A word that speaks of a regrouping. Of time to be spent preparing. He sits in a pew toward the front. He has not been in many churches. He does not relish being in this one. Still, the place is nice. Priests are always well fed, also. Seldom see a fat priest. He sits there. He feels the memories coming back... sliding back over his body. He begins to remember a life reaching back before the darkness. He sits there and lets the memories happen. For the first time, the hungry urgency to go forward ebbs away, although he knows it will come back when the time is right. For now, however, he sits there. And, as he sits there, he begins to remember.

16

He considers some possible ways to get food:
Steal it.
Beg for it.
Dig it out of the garbage.
Work for it.
Mug someone for money to buy it.
Mug someone who is eating something and take it from them.
None of these, however, appeal to him. He chastises himself for not wanting to work for food, but he rationalizes that his distaste is due to urgency. Working takes too long, and he is hungry right now.
As he walks into the town square, another option presents itself. A church. A word stamps itself into his brain: Sanctuary.

15

The path takes him to the central street of the village. The place is depressed and, like everything else he has encountered since coming out of the darkness, the place is, well, out of place. The out-of-place-ness is in keeping with the same infuriating logic of the dreamscape in which he has begun to think himself entrapped. He is sick of dreaming. He is sick, for that matter, of not knowing whether he is dreaming or awake. Okay, he says, It's weird, here. Wherever I am. I get it! He says this too loudly, and the people, a couple of them, look at him. He wants to run up to them and shout googoogoogoogoogoogoogoo!! He refrains from doing so, but it takes effort. And hunger is beginning to pound down upon him. He had thought hunger a nagging voice, but this hunger has a kinetic force. He checks his pockets. He has found a knife and flint -- perhaps the same whatever has provided him with money. No such luck.

14

As he follows this ghost of his own memory, he remembers a joke. A joke/puzzle. Why can a bear only go half-way into the woods? Because then he's not going in -- he's coming out. Not the funniest joke, but it fits the current situation. They are coming out of the woods, he and the woman. There is a valley. In the valley, there is a village. He can only follow the woman a little further. She is an intellectualization of his hunger, he thinks. And she is not real. She goes away, but she will come back. The hunger remains. There is a country song in these thoughts, he says to himself. Again, he chuckles. He is in a mood as he enters the village.

13

The woman. It takes him a moment or two to recognize that the woman who is laughing at him in his memory is the woman he had been pursuing in his dream -- the dream that had led him to his library. He stops dancing. The vision of the mind is every bit as clear as the vision of the eye. He looks at the path; he remembers the woman. Perhaps he was not pursuing her so much as she was leading him. He spends a moment concentrating on the woman he is remembering, and then she is there, on the path. He has decided to let her lead him further.

12

He takes to the rude pathway, once again. He walks until he forgets he is walking. His body has attained a rhythm that now supercedes thought. He embraces this rhythm -- allows himself to fall forward into it -- and simply lets the rhythm guide him. He chuckles. Let the rhythm guide you. Do the Funky Chicken. That phrase. To a dance. From his culture. His people. A culture and a people that would make up a dance called the Funky Chicken. This makes him chuckle some more. He likes saying it: Do the Funky Chicken. He imagines what the dance might look like. He dances. He has no idea whether he is actually doing the Funky Chicken or just flinging his arms and legs around. A memory: He is dancing; a woman is laughing.

11

This time, he does not dream, and when he wakes, he is not disoriented. He is completely refreshed, except for his hunger and his thirst. But it has rained during the night, and water for him to drink has collected in the hollow of a large nearby stone. The wilderness glows in the light of morning, and the fire that he has built at the edge of his shelter still smokes from its embers. He needs food. And then he needs to... to what?... the appropriate verb eludes him... to find? someone.

10

He walks into the wilderness and continues for what he figures are a few hours. He thinks he remembers things. Survival things, not things about his life or about his situation. He doesn't know whether it is memory or whether it has been put there. It feels like memory; it feels as though he has known it, as though it has been a part of his life, that he has learned these things and simply has not used them for so long that he has forgotten them, and forgotten that he has ever learned them. He knows he has to make or to find a shelter, and he knows how to do so. He locates a rock formation, jutting out from a hill. This will do. He knows he must build a fire, and he knows how to do this, as well: he finds some dry, stringy bark, which he shoves around some larger dry sticks he has gathered. He knows, somehow he has a knife and a stone in his pocket, and he scrapes the knife on the stone over the tinder and wood to produce a spark that then produces the fire. And, most importantly, he will find out that he knows how to hunt and scavage -- slugs, insects, small animals -- and to find water (boiling whatever water he finds in order to make it drinkable). He is both thankful and not a little irritated at the thought that, if he is not remembering the skills, then something -- The Magnificence, likely -- has placed this knowledge, these skills, in his head. Neither thankfulness nor irritation will get him anywhere, however, so he chooses not to dwell on either feeling. Shelter secured, fire started, he lies down, exhausted, and sleeps.

9

The remembrance of the details of personal history is not a priority when one is immersed in a situation of compelling urgency. This is not to say he doesn't question his present situation. He does, but he is forced to defer their contemplation: Why was he captured? What captured him? Why did he dream? And there are three more fundamental questions he does not yet ask: Where had he come from, through the darkness? Why is The Magnificence urging him forward? And, as his feet find a rude roadway carved into a wilderness that is now forming around him, as though by the permission of The Magnificence, an odd thought: He does not know the directions, but he knows he will get there. Hunger is his map.

8

It speaks, but it does not speak in words. There are sounds of vibrations, of mechanical workings, and of crowds of voices -- the human/mechanical voices he heard before first he beheld the magnificent structure (and the structure, he realizes, is, indeed, magnificent). None of these sounds create words, however. A phrase bubbles up in his mind: "non-symbolic language." Unusual time to think of such a thing. He knows what the phrase means, too: language without letters or other symbols to interfere with the transmission of information from speaker to listener. It makes perfect sense to him, although the words are not his own. But who among us has his own words? Language -- now symbolic language -- has to be agreed upon or else you get, what? Humpty Dumpty. "I use words to mean what I want them to mean!" And from this kind of language -- a language of your own words, you get nothing. Sounds. But the sounds he is hearing do mean something, and the sounds are not symbolic. They are what they are. The pictures he is seeing are what they are. The Feelings, such as the ones he is... feeling... they are what they are. The thing speaks to him in non-symbolic language. Yes: Anxiety. The girl turning the corner. Hunger. An urging. An urging. An urging forward. His body aches with the desire to go wherever this urging compels him to go. He feels nothing that might be called love, however. Or, if he does, this feeling is deferred -- is stored away in one of his mind's many boxes. He is calling the moving shapes that communicate to him The Magnificence. The Magnificence is urging him. He goes forward, then, not as one hypnotized, but as one whose will has been directed by a visceral clarity unreachable through, or by, language. He goes forward.

7

He begins to feel hungry. It is not a hunger for food, however. It is a more pervasive hunger. It increases as he looks at the thing in the volume. It is a hunger that he is, slowly, coming to remember. It is a hunger that awaits definition. He has felt this hunger, before. He thinks of the joy of hunger. Not a joy, so much as an enthusiasm for reaching a state of fulfillment. He loves being hungry. The hunger motivates him, yet he knows not the direction of this motivation. Nor does he care. He wants to consume, to eat, to act, to fulfill. But he does not want to be sated. The hunger wakes him. The dream drips away, the library melts, the book dissolves. The machine-human headed thing remains, and he stands in front of it, no longer bound but intent. He knows it will speak. He waits for it to speak. It speaks.

6

He has always had this library in his mind, so long as he can remember. He has used it as a haven within his dreams, and he has learned how to transport himself to it when he is awake and in need of calm. He does not always direct himself, consciously, to go to the library. Some times, such as now, his unconscious mind has placed it before him. He knows -- he has faith -- that within the walls of the library as much as within the vast array of its books there is solace for any trouble and an answer (or answers) for any question. He walks over to a nearby shelf -- a shelf that reaches to the height of the ceiling, barely within his sight -- and draws out a volume. He opens it and there before him, on the spread of the volume's pages, is the strange formation of moving/unmoving shapes he had seen just before his capture. He looks at the thing. If he looks at it in a certain way, the shapes, though separate and distinct, form a head. Eyes of a sort. And the eyes look up at him from the pages. Perhaps in recognition.

5

He is walking out of the darkness, and he is once again aware of his feet. They are touching the pavement, and she is up ahead of him. He walks toward her, trying to catch up. He knows where he is. He is in that part of the city that his dreams have often presented to him. A city made up of parts of the city and, in a sense, parts of his own memories and desires. Of course, when he has almost caught up with her, when he is within talking distance of her, she turns a corner and is gone, as he knew she would be, because he has become aware, now, that he is dreaming, and he knows, from experience, that this is how dreams work. His dreams, at least. But it's okay that she's lost him because he has come to the library -- the most fantastic library in the world. He runs up the stone stairs, opens the great oak doors, and goes in.

4

Whatever it is that is binding him is also moving him. He fights the instinct to panic. Involuntarily, he opens his mouth to scream, but he catches himself before a scream actually comes out. Although he has begun to be able to see the environment around himself, he still cannot see his own body -- his hands, his legs, his feet. His feet. They are not touching anything. Since coming into the dark, however long ago, he has been losing awareness of his feet. Increased awareness of everything else -- his elbows, his knees, the itch of his nose -- strange things that are not generally noticed. But the awareness he has of his feet has ebbed away, slowly, imperceptibly. He has taken for granted that they were on a surface, but he has forgotten about them. How can a person forget about his own feet? He remembers them now because nothing is supporting them. He remembers something because something he is remembering is no longer there. No ground. Perhaps he is flying. There is no wind. He becomes weak. He has forgotten whether he has slept recently. He begins sleeping now, although he is not aware of it. Dreams come to him.

3

Some of the figures are moving, and some are still. Reflective of the ambiguity of the noise he hears, it is unclear whether the figures are machines or living beings. The number of moving figures changes. When he first sees what he is seeing, all but a few of them are moving. As he continues to watch, more and more of them become still until all but a few are motionless. So far as he can see, there is never a time when all of them are moving or when all of them are still. And there is a pattern, perhaps: almost none of the figures is moving, then a short period of time passes before the number begins to increase, and then the number of moving figures increases until nearly all of the figures are once again moving. Then, after a short period of time, the number begins to decrease, and the pattern continues in reverse: almost all moving to almost none moving. Whether the rate of change in the ratio of the number of moving figures to still figures is constant or whether it fluxuates, he cannot as yet perceive. He is, however, unable to examine the matter further, hypnotic though the motion is, because something has captured him, binding him such that he cannot move, cannot escape.

2

The noise is ambiguous. It is mechanical, or it is human. Perhaps it is both -- a strange, industrial, cybernetic hybrid. He can't discern whether the human part of the noise -- if there is one -- is full of voices raised in anger and uproar or whether it is a collective voice of celebration. And as for the mechanical portion of the noise -- again, if there is one -- he has no way of knowing whether he is hearing engines that build, that cultivate, or machines that wreck and thus lay waste to that which they touch... whatever unseen material that may be. As he approaches, body directed by the ears, ears directed by the noise, he can, at last, see a gradation in the black mauve. Can see lighter, can see darker. The darker is, he guesses, substance. And as he approaches further, he thinks he can discern a profile of life and movement articulated by the substance. Heartened -- by constructive or destructive forces he doesn't care for the moment -- he continues his approach until he can see, for the first time, something other than shadow. Something he can recognize. Kind of: he can make out the shapes of figures, but he cannot, as yet, tell what those figures are.

1

It takes a little listening to get beyond the darkness and the silence. There is no geography, no marker as of yet, even to allow for a feeling of disorientation. A memory for color suggests that there is none of that, either, although the closest equivalent would be a blackish mauve whose heaviness oppresses and obliterates everything that might be submerged within it. Since there is still the ability to remember things, to place them in some taped-together form of chronology, and since, apparently, there are still thoughts and impressions to add to this chronology, there is still a progression of time. And there is a comfort to this condition, or whatever it is. Somewhat to his surprise, this feeling of comfort comes to an end when, from the depth of wherever he is, there comes, from a distance, a noise.