The cat has left a gift upon the kitchen floor. It is a mouse. Its heart still beats, though it is at pains to do so. A bubble of thought rises soberly into the air: 'Please let me be', but the guardian cannot hear this. She is turned the other way. Her thoughts sink slowly to the ground: 'Where are they?'
The floor has recently been washed and the pulsing corpse could be the sordid decoration on a ceremonial cake. A something to be proud of. 'They must come soon'. In the distance a bang and the sound of footsteps: approaching, deviating, retreating. Silence. Patience. 'Miaow '. Here they come.
But the high sonic reveille that greets her when the door is opened is too much for Ting and out she darts through the cat-flap, as fast as her aged limbs will take her. This may be the last gift she leaves.
Had she stayed in place, however, she would have seen that her gift had brought not joy but resigned anger, as the mouse is quickly scooped up and carried outside to the bin. The bang of the lid as it closes is indeed a joyless sound. But imagine, if you please, that mother and father had taken a turn around to the back of the house in search of Ting and found there a palace of fur and twine, of trinkets and bones. That her mouse had been only a foretaste of the stuff her dreams were made of.
Imagine then, that they had ventured through a magical doorway constructed of twigs, cobwebs and fish bones and stood in wonder, unaware that Ting, perched up high and looking down upon them in a curious way, was counting the seconds until the commencement of her glorious plan.
When their hands join they find themselves formless, as suspended light that finds expression in a single spark that separates itself and journeys through the air into the murky dark where it settles at the heart of the gloom (the soul is infinitesimally small - a zygote, a sperm).
It is cold here, a foreign place, not entirely dark, but casting little lustre into the surrounds. It is the centre of a place that is yet to be realized, an island in the shade of trepidation. The spirits of dead mice risen abound. The crystalline centres of their eyes crackle and fizz as ice cold water washes through them. Just above the surf small flies gamble with their lives and often lose. However, it is not entirely silent, footprints splash determinedly through the tide and stop before me.
I can see very little in this gloom but as I attempt to stand and face my assailant the space grows a little brighter. There is now light enough to see her face, which is rounded and dark. Her hair is pinched back; her eyes large and wide. Her lips are full and, stretching diagonally across her cheeks, from her chin to her ears, are a pair of zigzagging blue scars, like bolts of lightning, and it is from these that the dawning light shines.
She takes my hand. Hers is soft. It feels like the kind of hand I would want to hold, and she guides me along behind her.
When she stops we are at the basket of a moored balloon, into which she deftly climbs, urging me to follow.
Once I am inside she cuts the guys without hesitation, and we rise into an uncertain sky, where nothing can be seen, no birds, no clouds, no ground below.
It seems an age before the balloon becomes trapped at the edge of a mass of weaving briars, into which she deftly leaps, while I cautiously follow. Though as she starts to weave her way skillfully through the dense entanglement I realise that they are in fact giant hairs and that we are venturing along the brow of god.
Our passage is slow and cumbersome but we reach the end in due course and she disappears into a hole that marks the position where the third eye would have been located, and I of course follow her through, but as I drop down I realise that I am once more alone.
The vast space into which I have landed, I soon realise, is the brain of god.
As I walk deeper into it the dots I had seen in the distance loom larger and I can make out figures: men and women at rest and dreaming upon slatted beds. There are also children, but these are not dormant, they run free, but are forever concealed by shadows, as they evade the realms of adulthood. They play hide and seek, but with every intention of losing themselves entirely, of never being found.
The adults, who lay on their backs upon the beds, have sheets pulled over their faces and seem at first glance to be dead, but as I approach I can see their chests are rising and sinking and can feel their breath, which is slight but nevertheless regular, when I hold my palm above their mouths. When I lift the veil from their faces their eyes flicker wildly, reminding me of antique computer banks, rapidly saving and deleting.
I now notice that none of the bodies are in contact with the beds upon which they appear to rest, levitating a centimeter or so above it, although they will not budge when I attempt to move them, not even slightly, as though they are in some way rooted, not only to the bed, but also to the earth beneath it.
I further notice that some are levitating over thin mattresses rather than beds whilst there is nothing at all beneath others, but every one of them is equally resistant to movement.
There is one, however, who lays face down, and I am inclined to believe that this one, being the exception, will not resist.
I am right, or at least partially so. When I grasp an arm and try to turn the individual to face me everything around me starts to fade, as it would if this were the dream sequence of a film, and when I let go the individual starts to turn freely, as though of its own volition, and then starts to spin and cocoon itself in a web that is the colour of faeces.
As though this was a cue I sense that the children are gradually approaching, moving cautiously into my field of vision, though when I turn to face them they are gone.
I also sense that the patch of ground upon which I am standing is starting to shift and sink, but is the cavity that is forming as much a cavity in the skull where my adventures are taking place as it is a cavity in the soil where I stand, which is all that remains as everything fades around me?
The spinning cocoon gradually tightens and elongates until it becomes so dark and heavy that it drops to the ground, where it cracks and spills its deep brown liquid contents, which start to corrode a deep hole into the earth.
As everything has now faded away and I am in danger of being consumed by the disappearing world of which I have become a part, I drop down into the hole, trying my best to avoid touching the corrosive ooze that runs down the expanding walls of the funnel, and as I descend I look up to see the children's faces appear over the rim. Attentively, they watch as I fall.
I don't have too far to go and land quite comfortably upon a meadow, dotted with large white balls that I initially take for stones, although they are very smooth and most perfectly round. Also, whichever direction I cast my eyes there are giant shoes of every description. I can't resist picking up one of the stones and am surprised to find that it is lighter than anticipated. I attempt to toss it into a particularly elegant Victorian boot.
