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.