41) I am under the distressed opinion that there is nothing natural in this world. I could begin with my rearranged, scarrified self, but I won't. Instead, I am a Jonah or Ahab, not in the belly of a whale, but the filthy hold of a ship. Jonah and Ahab are strange fantasies. I am no fantasy, I am real. Also artificial. I am both, as were the slaves imported from hither and yon for work and cruel, life-long entertainments. I think I may be a real slave at this point in time. I am brought a fermented crush of fish in a big bowl or such. My captors lower an offal trough of the same down to my prison from the deck, my water, too. I can hear them laugh while performing this task. Especially when I am obliged to reattach the trough from any given yesterfeed. I am a good slave. I eat and drink everything they bring. I am very real when retching my soul onto the smeared floor, the hull, whatever. I've chosen a place for the latter activity, in a corner well off the hatch thrown open at Torment Time (as I now call the occasion of the trough decent). As for evacuation, the final ridding of my perturbed system, I've chosen a shady spot bounded by supports and iron girding. It is as far away from where I drag the trough to eat as possible. Down here I experience little purposeful movement apart from my ramble from the retching spot, to trough, to shitting place. And more: I've been here for three days and so have begun naming stations along the route. First there is the Vomitorium, very Roman, very imperial, then comes the trough drop I call the Salon, from there I walk along the Esplanade to the Date Garden, a much welcomed few feet of circulating fresh air created by minor imperfections in the ship's construction, soon I come upon the Frontier, a porous boundary, just before the Savoie, my crapping place, becomes overwhelmingly foul enough to chase naming away.
Yes, I have thought of combining the Vomitorium with the Savoie but I've learned I cannot make the distance before doing one or the other thing. You understand, I must preserve the Date Garden.

The knocking of my boots upon the floor is a kind of music. I've taken to music. The spirits onboard join in. They are many.

After three days I know Dr. Creep is not here. He may have lost me. In this other world, I'm being taken on a brigantine by pirates or simple kidnappers. They rain down on me the sound 'criminal, criminal'. In a moment of weakness they tossed a placard or handbill on which I am claimed to appear among the crudely drawn lines. Ugly visage. Someone has seen me and been alive enough to provide a sketch. I am wanted here and there. I've done nothing but have only been a mute dreaming of and marching North. I will not take much more from my captors, though such a diffuse sentiment is a long way from a plan. I must plan getting away.