22) I woke up from under a hail of luggage. The motion of the train that had lulled me for a time had ceased. There was screaming and moaning. Out a tiny window I saw the rocky ground where the night sky should have been. I was intact, as is only right. I scrambled for my backpack and crawled from the broken car to the outside. Bodies were scattered in the scrub. There was upset. Hurt. Names were called. Where was so and so? Have you seen this one or that?
I could not help. And I was unticketed. Events, wrecks like these call for greater attention to detail. I could not wait around. I had to flee.

I had managed to sleep long enough to dream a stupid dream about farming, running a big green tractor, leaving furrows with something I dragged, something attached to the machine. I dreamt that I hit a series of rocks. My tractor idled to a stop. I went to check it out. I climbed under the furrower, what the hell. The tractor began to roll forward. I was interlarded, mixed into the soil. I died in my dream. Is that supposed to happen? Not by the ordinary rules of dreaming.

Water has gods. Breath and rocks have gods. Fire, the stars, trees, even the lowly jackal have gods. Gravity does not. Nowhere, among no people, have I found a god of gravity. Is it that we never notice it until, through its agency, we fall down? Or are hailed upon? What haunted, addled people. Yet gravity was somehow missed. It is between me and the earth, our problem. Perhaps I am losing my mind just a little bit. Walking, walking is good. I've nowhere to go. Walking is good.

So I walk, uncertain as to North. I leave the calamitous wreck behind. Even in the lee of a wayward rise I could still hear the cries of the injured. I began to whistle through my cracked teeth. Cracked teeth? So I was injured, too. I am interested.

21) Dr. Creep was not answering. I was still confused as to the meaning of my stay in Ushuaia. Don't give me that 'maybe it wasn't to have meaning' bull. Nothing the Doctor does is without great planning so as to maximize meaning.... Sigh. I've had this pointless argument with contrary bits of my brain for as far back as my Great Accident 14 years ago. Since then I've wandered hillsides dodging snakes and beasts, ascended the higher flanks of mountains until I could no longer breath, I've fallen into rivers, some cold, some boulder strewn, some both. It has gone on and on. Rarely have I ever penetrated the Doctor's design. What I do know is that I am alive, and I will be tomorrow, and the day after that.

I found a train. So, further North. Go. I hide near the rail, I brush away the footsteps behind me, I hide in the train.
I hide well enough to sleep.

20) I had to leave town. I am going. I am leaving. I have already left. Earlier, when I had just stepped from the rubble, I was so completely untouched, even by dust, that those who were the first to arrive mistook me for the first to arrive. They beseeched me for answers. They raised their fists. I was not afraid. No one recognized the face that had not healed.
More small voices protested to god the lives lost in the building's collapse. Others grasped handfuls of rotten mortar and more properly shrieked and sobbed blame at contractors. Cheap materials. Poor execution. Cry. Cry. Every time.

From the moment of catastrophe I have done nothing but walk North. No, I do not know what to make of my time in Ushuaia. Neither did I have the time to heal nor did I play any part in my reintegration into the human family: After all, my hosts could not speak to me, they are gone, desaparecidos; I still have no papers; The police had not been apprised of my habitation; I had been falsely accused of self-gratifying acts on the beach. What was Dr. Creep thinking? I slink away. I am slinking away into the mountains. At this moment, I overlook yon tiny confused town: Ushuaia, my aborted spa! Good bye.

Dr. Creep, a word.

19) I dragged myself out of sleep. From my head to my twisted ankles, I hurt all over. I did not like this room with bars on the windows and door. Foul odors. Puddles of urine. Decay and sweat made the air oily. I am in a jail, I guessed. I could see the shadows of my cell mates, the police. They turned to my stirring self, murmuring in the same damn tongue that has bedeviled me since arriving here. Hands roughly touched me. I heard moaning. It was me. Nothing clears the head like pain. I pulled away from them and against my shackles. They leaned over me and showed me a paper on which it was illustrated that I had been without consciousness from when the little hand was on the six to when the little hand on the eleven. I agreed. So what? They then held up the recovered magazine of Spanish porn I had seen on the beach, and they quickly followed it by an official photo taken of my body just after I had been unlandslided: My zipper was down and there was my organ of regeneration, sad and dusty, being pointed at by a policeman. What a smirk on his face. (I'd like to see his such-and-such after a rockfall!) Now began the wind up, their voices rising in time with accusing fingers pointing. What did they mean? Wait. No! Were they suggesting...? But I'd chased the woman away! That gray fleshy part of me, that modestly wending thing, it doesn't even work! I'd have to be hit by lightning to get it to work! I couldn't explain that to them. I waited for the beating to resume.

There was a terrific roar. The earth began to move. All about me blocks of stone tumbled. The ceiling fell away. Walls crumbled as though it were Jericho itself. The shadows around me were all crushed.

I was miraculously spared. My shackles slipped off my narrow wrists. I found my backpack. I stood up and walked out of what once was a cell. Which is to say, I escaped.
Ahh. Of course. Thank you, Dr. Creep.

18) I had been wandering the beach for the better part of the day. Were it not for the violent asphyxiation of fish in great numbers in the littoral zone there would have had no waves at all. Had the poor moon been dismissed? But, oh, my tender feet. Rest and pause, I'm embarrassed to say, is what I needed. I've thousands of miles ahead of me, over rocky and angry land, and here I am complaining about pacing a passive beach. Well, seems I am in a bit of a bind, n'est pas? And then, just when my diminished condition was all I could manage to repulse as thought (so to entertain brighter notions), what should I see but another person. So now I had to repulse a stranger, too? It was a lot to take. I picked up a stick and charged the thing. She screamed. (If a man, he was not one then.) She ran. I wanted her only out of my sight but she went a good deal further. I took her place at the rock. It felt good, almost mythic, as though I had founded a...well, a...point of view? Some myth, you stupid freakish lout. I can be hard on myself.
I needed to piss. I was alone and then some. I drew my joint of regeneration from my pants when I noticed a magazine of Spanish porn, well creased in the sand, very near me. A sudden rock fall knocked me out, put me under.

17) I have been concealed in plain sight for hours. I'm just another placid tourist strolling a beach, in contemplation of eternal verities, with a pocket full of tiny sea shells, hoping to piss fully concealed. I don't know what to do with myself. My hosts may have returned home. I have no way of knowing. Shall I return to the shanty? What about the police? I have no papers, nor any clear idea of what papers are. Really! There is plenty of light so I needn't come to any conclusion yet. In a pinch I could sleep on the beach. I'd have only to find a weathered hollow to curl within. What joy the reasoning wherein everything concluded is right! Dr. Creep would be pleased that I answer every question about the world with yet more reference to myself. I am child-proofed against... me.
So I sit on the rocks and mark time. I look at my stupid stolen myth book. Such a treasure trove of bad luck and ugliness made good. I feel at home with the images I see when turning pages. One illustrates a ship wrecked by superlative serpents made crazy by their muscles. And from the ship's splinters (and the two survivors) was a city founded. Another drawing is of young people drowning, lovers, drowning in cold, cold water. They've become mournful winds, howling sadness 24/7. There is an illustration of a Sacred Fucking Stone (as best as I can tell), a flat, quarter acre of rock at the base of impossible cliffs, whereupon generations of the best natives were conceived, that is until the dreaded Spanish came and dropped heavy stones from the heights upon them....Animals born of celestial collisions, mountain ranges sprouting from the loins of gods competing for the first penetration of terrified virgins. Angry rain, hence rats. Angry rats, hence disease.
But the most awful picture concerned the very foundations of the world: The four great gods were battling over which was the most sublime cardinal point. Such was the fury of their dispute that they sought to destroy what each and the other found most beautiful. Of course, it was their children, the children of the gods. To that end did each create a monster. The book showed four cliffs, atop each cliff stood one of the monsters. And in the armored claws of each were bunches of children drawn from straw baskets heaped with the same. The monsters threw the children into the frigid waters. Alas, all of the children died. From their broken bodies so was the world created. Islands, spits, mountains, the plains, continents, all land is made of them. Now the monsters, they wander the earth, waiting to be told what next to destroy. They come from all directions. The origin of death.

16) I found a back door to the shanty or I wouldn't be wandering the waterfront, now would I. I do not know what to make of this turn of events. Perhaps I should have stayed put. But the language barrier...that, and I don't have any papers. How to explain to the police when I am such a poor illustrator and, double whammy, when I am unable to converse sensibly for conventional lengths of time without gasping? How to express an idea before passing out? So attractive. I might as well be wearing a butcher's apron. And, anyway, vocalizing is difficult for me. I have a blockage, a polyp, or a fleshy hinge betwixt wind pipe and voice box. Dr. Creep has not fooled with this part of my anatomy, so I can't be sure. But I need help. I would appreciate intervention so that I might speak to another living soul now and again. Dr. Creep, are you listening?

15) I am not a thief. I want for nothing. As though it is up to me. Dr. Creep will not let me go hungry or remain cold for long. He clothes me, shods and delouses me. That he maintains my health is his greatest gift. However fine this situation has proven up to this point I should like to know what I might do left to my own devices and how I might get along by myself in this awful world. Could I find clothes? Shoes? Could I feed myself? Up to a point, let's not get all worked up. But what if I took an infant's step, just to see.... So, I stole a book from the downstairs library, the one heavily illustrated in the matters of local myths and legends. I am proud of myself. So far so good. No repercussions. Have I discovered limits to the good Doctor's intelligence? I was giggling when I hobbled downstairs to steal another three books. Bad me! I have no idea what they are about. Shall I dare steal them, too? Hoho. I leave them, but I could have taken them. And still nothing has happened to me! I may not be a thief but I think I am a bit of a liar. Maybe Dr. Creep has no moral compass. Or, more likely, as my excitement chills in recognition of a pattern, maybe he wants me to see this myth book. Diabolical.

It is late in the day. I am beginning to wonder what has happened to my hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Comosellama.

My worry heightens when I see below my window what appear to be the police. And darn, if they don't have the pebble tossing teen in their back seat. He is out in a bolt, gesturing at my visage. Instinct tells me to hide. The police must be kicking the door. I take the book I stole fair and square, stuff it in my backpack, and look for a way out.

14) I awoke to pebbles being tossed at my window. Could it be the good Doctor? I have no one else. Well, I am quite sure Dr. Creep is not the spindly teenager I see below. He says 'Maria' over and over again. I told him there is no Maria, at least in this room. He used some other words that might as well have been more pebbles bounced off my forehead. He left very upset. I must be in this Maria's room. Where she has gone, her local history, I cannot involve myself in. I can have no truck with the locals. I am not from here: Foreign is as foreign does.

I shall have to draw for my host a picture of this boy. My exchange with him cannot be illustrated but by a big, fat zero. Leave it at that.

Downstairs I find a pot of food with breakfast written all over it. I eat with a spoon. No one is around. The shanty is too quiet. I want to know how the night passed for my hosts. I find their bedroom without making a racket. They are not there. I enter because of the unexpectedly large library I can see through the crack at the door. Books tower from floor to ceiling. I browse with no fear of detection. I find a book of local myths and folklore. Though I cannot read the language, the volume is heavily illustrated. I am sure I can construe the stories well enough, at least for me. I remove the book for my own needs. I'll be upstairs.

13) I was given rice and beans and a cheap red wine for dinner. Now I can fall to sleep, it is dark enough.
I hear the crying again. Not an infant or an older soul. Maybe it is a kind of bird. Calling for a mate.

12) Small night. Big day. I need food, drink. But first a bath or shower. I am not clean. On the boat there were no opportunities for washing. I've had no ablutions for a week. I am unclean. Alone, I had no cares. Vanity, sans object, took a holiday. But I am now among people, however small and obscure and incomprehensible they may be. If humanity shares a common language of decency I am swearing in it now.
I am taken by my diminutive hosts to a shower which is warmed geothermaly, as if I gave a shit. Safely under, the water graciously pours down upon my dirty head. A brown sheen runs down my legs, vermin migrate. My hair is a bit knotted. Cut it off. My blackened fingers and toes hurt. They will be entertained later today. I've lost weight. My ribs ride over one another with big breaths. I think my masculinity has retreated for good. Irregular bowel movements annoy me. It is about whether I shit in a bucket, a hole in the floor or into an endless abyss, whether into a fast stream I cannot ford or on the ice, where, freeze dried, it will remain for a hundred years. I cannot relax and let go without understanding.
My elbows, knees, ankles, wrists, all my articulated bits are grinding, mortar and pestle like, by the way. Bringing up the rear. No malady wants to be left behind.

I leave for the hospital in a tiny car. In the back seat I must appear the Christmas present too large to hide. Or an impractical family pet. The engine whines under load. I ask the driver why they bother. How much is Dr. Creep paying them and their salvation army? Of course, he talks nonsense. If there is information in what he says it is his little secret. God, drop me off. My host is fading.

In the hospital fingers jab at a manifest. I learn that my medicine will be long in coming. It seems the truck delivering supplies to this backwater crashed. Nothing to be done for me but a paring of dead flesh, then the draining of the balance, and lastly, wearing clean socks for a healthy comportment. I'm out the door.

It hardly matters that my medicine will be tardy. I have a backpack Dr. Creep has seen fit to fill. I am indulging these local do-gooders. It is part of a larger idea: To appear human, just normal folk, thence to swiftly get away. No notes, no scribbles of any kind. To hell with paperwork. No record of my having been here will persist beyond fragile, disputable memory.

A sudden ice storm drew to a close human congress for today. But I cannot end on a bad note. Yes, the hospital proved unhelpful, and yes, my tongue-tied host has grown pale, and the trucks meant to bring me help have overturned. Still, I have sleep and its promise of better sights.

I am dreaming of a cellar at the end of time. Heaven is a wine cellar. Though it is a cave, I ascend to it. Earth is its basement. It is cold. Bottles and bottles. I am dreaming. Bottles and bottles.

11) I have been moved into a shanty, one of a little community built upon a glacial deposit of stones. I am to convalesce here. My immune system must improve or the first dirty people I touch will be the end of me. Days are a more familiar period of night and sun. I have noticed three or four hours of muddy light, maybe darker, then a giving back of the morn. Indeed, the further North I've gone...well, every school child knows what happens. I am not much of a teacher, nor, while I'm at it, am I lifelong learner. I am erratic, errant, a mild-mannered traveler. I'll tell you something, I have been traveling the greater part of my life. Long trips are common to me. I do not have adventures. I have stirring bouts of fitness and poor direction. I think I am dyslexic. Dr. Creep could tell me if only I could get an damn appointment beyond the instant he appears during acute panic or when I am about to mortally fail. So, dyslexia, maybe? I can't self-diagnose. Just a word. And I really don't care.
By the way, I shall have occasion to describe my former life in detail later, but I will say this right now: things don't work when I am around.... I worry for my hosts.
Soft crying floats like ash out of a nearby shack and fails to move the thorny creosote. Or my heart. But such a beautiful sunset.

10) Upon a stretcher, shrouded under a white silk sheet, I was carried to the dock. My natives set me down and left my side, forever. They were called away by a voice I certainly didn't hear. A small place, this port. Scattered masts, chipped and battered bows listing. Lazy commerce. Nothing decays, it only sinks. My conveyance, secured to weathered pilings, is no longer a ship, but a far smaller, rusting, derelict thing. How did I miss its decline? The ship's demotion to boat, I don't get it. I see it, but I don't get it. And now from boat to scrap is just moments away. Locals on the shore laugh at its rapid aging. From sparkling railings, doubled, clear glass, fresh paint, it is now a wreck. It is good thing we don't clearly see the thing that frames us. We might fail, prove unproductive, fearful. I don't know what else to say. I am glad to be ashore.

The boat's natives are gone altogether. I am surrounded by even smaller people. A group of them hoist my stretchered self. They point and shout in hummingbird tones about my new neighborhood. Up the hill. They make my way. Hands grasp, reach for my person. No! I will not relinquish my backpack. Walking would be satisfying for me. Weight is good. I've thousands of miles ahead of me. Why would I care about a mere constitutional up a barren hill? But Dr. Creep has given strict orders that I am to be carried. I feel smuggled, very special. Someone tries to remove my sheet. I cannot explain to Mr.and Mrs. Local, so I lightly punch them, with affection, hoping to make myself clear. Anger. Yet even if they wanted to kill me, they are so small it would take more than a hour, what, with their tiny hands. They would tire, that's my bet.
Off to my 'recovery center'. Dr. Creep has made it sound like something more than a shack with a hole in the floor for recuperative shitting. I don't think he's been there. Unless he's there now.

9) I had no packing to do. All I needed, no more no less, had been brought into my room layered in a big backpack, done while I lay asleep. Without a chair to save me, people could just come and go. They did. A little stealth I can tolerate, especially if it means brand new clothes: a heavy coat lined with ermine, woollies, boots, a waterproof hat, and even glasses oddly named after a desert. This rough weather ensemble was anatomically arrayed on the cabin floor. All that was needed was a body. Mine!

And as I finally turn to the sum up my experience on board, truth to tell, my sleeps have been good and deep. I woke every few hours refreshed, with a clear, properly sifting intelligence, confident as to what to admit, what to send away. So darn capable. Never having felt this way in my entire life, I have to believe Dr. Creep has routinely put pharmaceuticals in my food. Goodness, I feel so 'on the ball', as they say way the hell up North. I shall need every bit of confidence, sturdiness, and smartmouthedness to survive and prosper in the coming months. I do hope he gave me abundant supplies of 'dietary supplements' for my trip. No Wizard of Oz, I'm O.K. you're O.K., backslapping bull. How awful to be just plain me at some life or death moment! I shall be climbing mountains, after all.... Fistfuls, please.

8) We made our way through the Beagle Channel, past a most unremarkable lighthouse. Blinding white light raked us every ten seconds or so. It was working. Stay clear of that damn thing.
In the warmer morning glow, Ushuaia fast approaching, all seemed right. My hands were healing, my face was presentable. Walking, which I was soon to do endless amounts of, was a tender affair, with each toe resembling a forkful of blackened swordfish. Yet through strained signs did my natives convince me I was going to be fine.
We and Us are pronouns of no real significance here on this boat. I stood shoulded to shoulder with them now on the deck, my native strangers, my handlers, my feeders, still I knew nothing of their habits or hungers. But on the other hand their language sounded like water hitting a frying pan, or bowling a strike, somehow cacophonous but fun. I couldn't really join in. They've been patient with me. Dr. Creep hand picked them, as he does all his interests.

One thing I will remember most clearly about my natives: always were they excited at penguin sightings. Seems they have a special relation with them. Perhaps they see them as little black and white gods?

7) It is my birthday. Land, Ho.

6) I am afraid of rabies. Cancer, too. Heart disease? Too many invisible, vague warning signs. Hardly worth the effort. Rickets, angina, tick fever, assorted rots, I don't have any of them. Never will. Blood issues, limb distortions, tissues gone wild, teeth rattling with each passing truck, liver imploding? Bring it on. Parasites? Me? Fever means never having to say you're dreaming. Let the body walk the walk. Leave me alone.

5) I heard a knock. I called out, 'Yes' or 'You!' or 'Pustefix'. And someone tried to enter. The chair was now braced against an intruder. The door knob rattled again. Silence. Though the wind was driving the cold like bolts and nails, one of my natives was blown in on his feet through the deck door. I had not thought to lock it. He was cross. He placed my meal, by now very cold I am sure, on the table, removed the chair barring the door, and he took it with him as he left. Now I have nowhere to sit but on my bed or on the floor. No bother. Tomorrow we were to dock. I sat on the floor to eat what I could salvage. Another knock. Stupidly, I kicked my plate upside down getting up and stepped on a far flung slice of sturdy toast. I was barefoot. I don't sleep with my shoes on but keep them very near me. Whatever. I opened the door to find a bottle of French wine, a bright little Pouilly-Fuisse.
Chilled, naturally.
I thought my food ruined, but after half a bottle of this lovely white you can be sure I was down on all fours nibbling and snacking away. I dispatched the rest of the bottle in no time. I had just gotten up, maybe an hour before, yet I had already crammed in a day's activities and mentation. Gently swaying at my deck window I looked outside and thought I saw my wife floating on her back in the Murray Narrows. Was she with child? Was it mine? Good Lord. I've all day to tease it out. I must find more wine!

4) I was deeply disappointed to learn that Cape Horn was but an island. It would be a few more days until, passing through the Wollaston Islands, we would head to Navarin Isle, now Navarino, thence across the Beagle Channel to Ushuaia. That last word was whispered to me through a crack in the cabin door. But why whisper? To avoid detection? From Dr. Creep who only cares for my well being? Less sense will be followed, it is hoped, by more sense. In time, now three days. Tres dias. I am concerned about Dr. Creep, however. He did say Cape Horn. Now we are going to Ushuaia. Are there others involved in my care?
I can now walk freely along the ship's perimeter, tethered by a cable to the railing. The seas are rough. Though not a prisoner what else am I or is anyone on such a ship, and in this place? My prison is carrying me to health. That is how I must look at it.

I fell asleep and had an odd dream. I tormented penguins while riding on a bicycle. Then it was their turn. I'll keep the rest to myself.

Strange as it may sound, I think I am shaving in my sleep. I woke up bleeding from a dozen little cuts about my chin and throat. Dead skin was scraped away. I am healthy just under! Still...I shall prop a chair against my door to retard a possible intruder. I hope he speaks english.

3) Days have passed with little human contact except for meals brought with a reassuring regularity. I can recognize two or three native souls. They knock very quietly. Whether I say 'Come in' or say nothing at all they enter my cabin and place my food on a table held fast against the rough waters. I once said 'Peaches', still they came in. They will not take my tray until everything has been eaten. Or thrown overboard. I think they know I sometimes do this because I will get the same food the next meal. The menu has no relation to morning, noon, or night. So I cannot tell the time.
I feel stronger. I do not believe Dr.Creep is on board. But to find out I shall quietly break a drinking glass and try to shred my wrists just a little. I walk to my bed, crawl under the covers for a bit of private dark, and with the bend of my arm I crush the glass. No sooner does it shatter then I hear fellows, my natives, intrude into the room. They drag me out from under, though with care. No bandages are needed. I laugh. This was only a test; still they restrain me, locking my arms behind my back in metal cuffs. Now I know, Dr.Creep is still on board, protecting me beyond all reason.
I am set at a window. I am fed my meal. Outside I see a severe Cape Horn. Land.

2) Every step from Antarctica is North. I might have been tempted to stutter in that idea, inching North then falling back South, South, South. I wanted to steal from my bed in McMurdo to the oft venting Mt. Erebus, playing on the ice all the way, with a sled lightly provisioned, to be sure.... No. Sadness. I could move only with difficulty. I missed my crevasse. The truth was, I was not to do any walking for a while. Dr. Creep's plan was to place me in the care of locals living near the Cape. They were to have been given instructions on how to care for me until my strength returned. Feigning sleep I overheard all of this from him as he spoke to parties unknown on a marvelous compact radio. I would like to have that radio.
We put to sea.

I slept I cannot guess how long. The light does not change here. I managed to stand up. Felt better. Shuffling, draped in blankets to the door of my ship's cabin, I stepped onto a deck of chairs and tables. Bracing, deeply chilled air, brought immediate pain to bits of frost-bitten flesh. Still, I took a seat. What ugly deck furniture for such an atmosphere. No one came to see me. Only a minor miracle of an airborn bug shunting from table to table, finally pulled over the ship's rail by the merest draught. I wanted to follow it over. I stood. Someone came up behind me with tea. I could not understand what he said, but his intent was clear. I was steered safely back inside.

1) I fell asleep, peacefully melting into the ice walls. My own body heat slurped me deeper and deeper down. I never expected to wake up. Or wanted to. Dying here was easy. Why survive only to die again under less favorable circumstances. A car fire, for example. But Dr. Creep would not let me go. Somehow he found me. He knew I had come to the Antarctic because of a compromised immune system-more about which later. Here in the Antarctic I do not need an immune system. No diseases, no bugs, no kidding. Yes, he had found me: through extrasensory means, perhaps. His blank face appeared high above, at the opening of the crevasse, outlined by the perpetual twilight of a late summer's night. So, I would not die today. Yeah.
Many ropes and hands later I lay in a warm bed feeling the pain of thawing extremities. I would keep my fingers and toes. My face would remain intact. I would have welcomed a bit of tissue loss: scars are a sign of health to me. But, again, Dr. Creep would have none of it. He could do no harm, he always said.
I was to be taken across the Weddell Sea and dropped off at Cape Horn. A big place. I was to be given a backpack of medicines, jerky, maps. Go home, the good Doctor said. So I will. North.