It is at this point in the tale that a man with a fabulous tail strides in to introduce himself. He swishes it firstly to the left and then to the right, as he steps up briskly to face me and slaps me with a finger on the nose. I must admit, I turn quite pale when he rolls his eyes and digs in his heels, before leaning in close to me. I feel I might die, although his eyes do not convey malice, and not for a moment do I believe I might actually be harmed.
"Russian!" he pipes. "Well I'll be damned! I've lost sausages here. Do you want some?"
He flicks a toe and spins around, and in a moment is gone. What a character. I've no doubt I'll see him again.
The sky is now filled with apocalyptic black clouds and a rain of golden flakes begins to fall. Loud rumbling is followed by a legion of black clad militia on bikes, wearing full face helmets, emblazoned with the insignia of the Noose. For the most part they stare straight ahead, but not one, who is presumably chief and is scanning the horizon, which is how he comes to see me.
He breaks from the group and heads straight for me, then plucks me up in his strong arms and drops me into the carriage of his bike before rejoining formation with the others. They are heading for the Reconditioning Centre for Dreamers. "Here's another one" he announces to his men "Roaming around in the open. Almost certainly a dreamer. Maybe even a poet."
The terrain is quite featureless, although before long the entourage starts to navigate its way through streets beneath grey edifices which increase in size as we travel between them. The shuttered windows are occasionally thrown open and through them appear giant heads which appear to jeer. However, the skin on their faces is flaking and peeling. It is red raw.
People start to crawl from the houses. They cling to each other, then come more, forming a sticky morass that grows into a corpulent, pulsing red member, into which the team of bikers collides and penetrates. Because this is the penitentiary. It is the soul, the brain, the heart. As they penetrate a whistle blows and the membranes of the walls snap shut behind them.
I am led to the front desk and the man there wants to take my temperature. He rudely seats me down and places a sensitised helmet over my head. The device reads my ears, my nose, my eyes, my lips. Sensors creep from it and move across the length of my body, concentrating particularly on the area of my sex. He reads the instruments and declares "This one's a dreamer alright!" However, the soldiers have all returned to their duties and there is no-one around to hear him. He is now playing at the machine as though it was a games console, and the music is getting steadily louder. He leaves the machine to walk with a female assistant.
I close my eyes and abandon myself.
I see them dancing around a pince nez, which spins at the tip of the trunk-like nose it is attached to, but every so often inverts and moves around like a caterpillar.
I speak and they disappear then reappear either side of me, unplucking the sensors from my body.
"The sensors can't be wrong" one declares. "No doubt about it, a dreamer" the other replies. And I wait, I cannot say how long. I feel like an innocent, bereft of all moral turmoil. I seem to wander without volition, going nowhere but where fancy takes me.
And so it is that I stumble upon a lavish feast. As I enter the dining hall my body fades and I float amongst the tables as a ghost. A crucifix that stands before one of the central tables bows as I approach it. The women who are seated on either side breath fire then jump up and briskly leave the hall, as though they had been affronted. They leave behind a pair of notes:
"It is a book that lies apart."
"It passes through the scripted ruins."
And then I plummet to the ground.
