53) Night approaches. I have been running for many days. Firstly, to get away from my stale entanglements in the wastelands of Matamoros, but, more importantly, to finally arrive, wherever. It is a puzzle that I still don't understand. Obscure ends make me run faster. Mortals. Stillness makes me run faster. Silence, etc. When the world settles around me I am left to be the agent of disruption plus. I am the great remainder. I bring my own climate or tremors. I am a shiver poised at the heart of things. I fell trees, buckle pavement, I wreck the bric a brac of natural wheels. I hear sobs at my magisterial loping by, as strong family relays, here, in the desert, lose washers or food gathers or fire building members, at my glance. I hear lowing among the placid cattle, who, through the culling agency of me, faintly recall their glorious fathers, the bulls of Greece, and what they once did to men sporting close. I can't help them. The oft-filled fields of them sprawl and die in farting tons of the same. They loved the range, down to the last strangled cud of grass. Yet I know good deeds when I see them. The hectic fox, the grouse, the climbing rat, the watering mule, or lost sheep, see the fish in a rainwater pool of granite, all the akimbo cyphers of animals I do not know, gruelling under the sun of me. They escape my shadow, long enough to copulate, in the most heroic extrapolation. Might as well be mirrors as mates they find. A barren minus, at the glass. Dark gives dark back. Sun gives back sun. The sameness of death triumphs. Heroes.

So what. I am not troubled. It is my way. And I have found so exampled a place. A graveyard. The earth may be deep and wide elsewhere, but here, it is aborted, sacrificed, designed by men. The graveyard mingles inwardly. Within its fence is more fence. And standing water from tears. The ground subsides in places, exchanging rot and air. Not well tended. Tumbled markers and statuary, effaced stones, broken concrete slabs, the usual indifference. Casual obliteration. Rain, wind, etc. It is the fault of the landscape, the pulverizing roots of trees sprouted from grandma's ailing chest. Fat, robust children, slain, bring forth lilacs and plastic flowers. What I like best are the family plots, flesh of a common name, their stones lean and touch each other. Were it not for the highway laid against them, one might be forgiven a trivial recollection or two.
But why indulge mud and bone when there is a future to win?
North.

52) At the edge of Matamoros I can see another city begin a mile a way, in the direction I want to go. I am not alone in this urge. So many want to go further. Though there are plenty of bridges and paved roads connecting the two, all are stopped up with barricades. Vehicles form lines to cross as far back as I care to see. Dark smoke billows the length. Too much waiting, too much visibility for me. So I must find another way. And I do, along a lazy bend in the dirty river, a river not grand at all. But before attempting these waters, I see a vehicle filled with uniformed men on the other side, a much reduced version of the strictures interrupting the more popular ways over. I size them up. They are tall and strong. When they get out to piss they tower over the grass. So strong was the flow of urine they make the weed and tussock bend. The men are pale, well proportioned, armored and armed. Binoculars. They have badged hats. They are not of the same wretched kind teeming at my back. They are complete, with a full complement of order and corporeal rigor in their bearing. No club foot, or hacking, or stoop, no diseased manner among them. At least from my viewing place. All points to caution, caution. No simple fording, this. I shall wait to see how others manage it, what strategy they employ. Oh, I could simply stroll across the water and end them with a gesture; but I might prefer a game today. Methinks games. I need only the rules.
I do not think they have seen me huddled in the creosote. So use to devastation they do not notice the growing ring of dying bush around me. I've chosen creosote for that very reason, it appears always to be dying. The men go about their business, watching the foliage for a shudder, speaking quietly among themselves, a laugh now and then, and, of course, pissing. The body needs all manner of release, its valves open constantly. Funny.
We begin even. That is how it starts. A game needs an imbalance, a first move. Behind me I hear stirring, noisy running to my left. Further up river a group of kids burst forth and leap to play in the water. Immediately the vehicle, whipping up a dusty cloud, is dispatched to meet them and counter their ways. I crawl on all fours, scurrying from brush to brush, to catch a glimpse of what might happen next. I hope learn the rules. In pursuit of the kids, those on the other side play well. They are out and after the scattering boys who are captured one by one. I haven't scuttled far when I hear breaking shrubs and branches to the right, near to where I just was. Another group, now men, enter the river there. It is as though this is the same scene repeated, with all the same people, aged a decade. Another vehicle races up, nearer to the men just crossed. Again, there is racing and loud chattering. And again, all are captured. Good game, but the rules are one-sided, favouring the pale, armored kind.
I'll just have to cross my own way. I rise. Feels good to stand up. I walk with slow deliberation. At the river's edge there is still too much commotion among the jostling teams to take note of me. So far, so good. But I am hooded and prideful. It is not long, a few steps into the noxious river, when the alarm is raised. The captured are handcuffed, stacked in a flatbed conveyance I did not see arrive. So the armored ones are now free to take a lively interest in me. They do. But I do not run. I walk. The uniforms gather, they wait for me to cross, thinking I am like the others. But I am not. They approach. I smile. One by one, like frail flowers in a heavy hand, they are crushed. Now that I know I am not a man it is easier to pass through them. Four, eight, fall, never to get up. I walk. The flatbed is all astir. Panic. Fear. The driver tries to speed away. The captured are tumbled off, and run bleeding to all directions. Those who've chosen the river return cannot swim constrained at the wrist. Drownings occur. I only walk. Of the rest, the shackled rotund or weak of foot, they retch and moan, make cries as I'm used to, then blink out like a porch light when the morning comes. Death is all around me. Others try for their destination. North, like me. If they are faster than I they'll make it. They don't. I tread over these soft stones paving my way. Forget me not. Only the driver escapes my sphere of influence. I don't care. I've somewhere to go. I'm coming, Dr. Creep.

51) While away from Dr. Creep, on board the Black Swan for so many days, I was free of the sense of his hovering. Bad dreams no longer occurred. My brain filled with a welcomed monotony. Water, water, everywhere. I had no thoughts for great spans of time. I was a blank. A beautiful zero, an empty set nesting in simple math. Sun after sun, night after night, etc. But he is back. Whether behind the next tree, staring down from a balcony, the eyes of a swamp crocodile following my step, or the dust of him in my knotted hair, I again know he is near. Were I a sparrow he would know that I fell and where. But now I understand a bit the why of it. I have been guided, marched, shepherded, more like herding. From timeless hibernation in Antarctica to my profoundly awakened state as I stand at a final border, a river, to cross today, he has been preparing me. I have been given time for the world to be shown. Every day brought new memories. No, that is not right. I merely remember the day and the day before and the day before that. I can put together a serial, pictures and movements, for my mind to explore as it might. Dr. Creep has allowed me to see how time might move. I have no thought of my life before him. I have had scattered irruptions of phantom recollection. I have ugly dreams. But without the world, it is nothing. Though I cannot care, I am unable, it is that the Doctor wants me to understand that others care. They care about their lives, their buildings, monuments, their issue and the other little fires that keep them. I do not need to be warm or cold. I do not need to eat or dress in clean clothes. I do not want for baths or ointments or powders. I never tire. None of the afflictions and joys of this world mean anything to me. I am shown important worldly cares so that I may better destroy them at the behest of the good Doctor. The more exquisite the spider's web the more grief that follows its destruction. I am not meant to lend a hand in the building but in the tearing down. I have no other purpose.
And my talents have gotten worse. Here, as I stand at the border of this Matamoros place, already the grass around me has retreated as though burned by acids. My pestilence spreads to shrubs and trees. Birds fall in slow circles. I hear death rattling in subterranean burrows. Dogs chase their tails and drop. The last meal of a man, after a full breath and a pouring of sun light, is the sight of the awful heap of me. I merely gaze, I protest. He dies just the same.
Yet the cardinal points are not men nor are they gods. I have to be shown what they love, what the other, each, loves. And I am to destroy it. The good of me. All I am for.
Now to cross a river.

50) All my wounds have healed but the greatest one of all, my destiny. It has been revealed to me and it opens like a malignant flower in my chest. After much floating I am ashore at Matamoros, a place where two countries grind against each other. The day grows hotter. I shift in my clothes for a patch of cooling dampness lingering from my fine swim. I have discarded my heavy coat. There are trees offering shade but they are all too far away to help me. I keep my distance, walking along railroad tracks and by fetid ponds of many colors, passed mounds of oily slag and machinic debris, smashed crates and wire, here vigorous weeds feed through the bodies of slain or starved dogs, stunted flowers are drained of color by lazy, bloated flies, black and irridecent green, their pollinaters. The ground percolates blistering vapors. Scratched and bruised children play in vehicles stripped of doors and glass. I hear pounding and pleas from within a locked trunk. Though I remain a stand out in appearance up close, I have found that in this neighborhood my terrible aspect blends in with the locals. Around me I see an abundance of diseased souls, twisted or blotted, bodies confused with demons and poison. Not to worry, all wear new shoes.
I have seen agreeable portions of the world, I have drifted happily over the ocean. Though no naturalist I know the acrid wind scrubbing this margin is most foul. And this is the lesson Dr. Creep teaches. I must move, wander, what have you, or where I pause will, in time, come to resemble the sore crust I now walk upon. But it is not that I thereby do a bad thing. It is just that I may do it in the wrong place, waste my talents where the locals can destroy perfectly well by themselves, all without my monstrous posing or prompting. No, my destiny lay north. Unfinished business is to be done up there. Three creatures like myself are to meet. Each is driven by its own Doctor, as it were. Although he did not spell it out, I am sure that, again, we come to harm the other, annihilate what the each has come to love most in this world: East, West, South.... And what wil become of me? I do not know what sublime means, whether it has a meaning. But they want this most high word for themselves.
How blind and indifferent are the lives of men to so obscure a ruinous scrimmage to come. How out of sorts will be the bird, the lion, the whale, to the destruction to be wrought by these little gods and their vanity.
Dr. Creep is the name I gave him. Now I know he is a cardinal point for I am created to do his bidding. His name is North. And he is most sublime. My fate depends on it.

49) The Black Swan is sinking. Water is seeping through rotting boards, through the hull, once the bilge spilled over. I am listing. No longer a sprite bobbing, my boat is heavy, dragging, mixed with what it once had lovingly repulsed. Port and starboard have become confused, now they shift, change places, with the movement of my flood, inside the ship itself. I've two oceans dying to reunite. Pieces of the boat are coming off in my hands. My bed or nest, the coil of thick rope, has decayed to a coarse paste. The railing has fallen away. Objects slide unobstructed into the water. I hear cracking in the masts. The great wheel from which I played pilot is broken like some discarded metaphysic of departure and return. Glass portholes and all of the captain's cabin windows shatter, one by one, as I pass. Amongst the debris trailing the ship I can see the rudder, a riddle of worm holes. The sun taunts me with the perfect illumination of these things.
How much longer until I go swimming? My two busted gulls will sink with the ship. I cannot save them. I had taken to signing with them. We had something. Both fell into the hold where I can sometimes see them, shimmering, when the filthy water tosses them out of shadow. Who knows, once the water becomes high enough maybe they will effect an escape. But to what is my sorrow. The larger sea? There they will repeat their misery on a grander scale. I must steel myself, what there is of me, against such sadness. They are members of a cruel kind. They need a long death to give them time to understand the error of their ways. Now they feed on my excrement and offal heavings. Learn, my terrible twins! Send your cries to the ears of your wheeling brood. Teach!
I shall begin swimming while the sun is still sky high. I can see the shoreline from my perch most high. The boat is sinking so fast that little eddies and whirlpools form where water rushes in. A larger creature, then more of them, arrive to explore the submerged deck. Out of the hold float my gulls lost in thought. Time for us all to go. I've my backpack of pebbles, knife, brochures, whatever the hell else. I keep it with me for sentimental reasons. I do miss Doctor Creep, the way you miss a book burned into a pile of ashes. I plunge into the ocean. Matching right arm to left, stroke for stroke, I ply the waters well enough not to drown, though I do a little of that, just to break the monotony. I can no longer see land so I follow the routine course of sea birds. As happened once before, fish die all around me. From the very small to a bloated sunfish, they roll to the surface, dead supplicants to so pointless a god, me. How fruitful is the sea! One day I shall make a great fisherman. For the souls of men, I will have to wait. Unless death is my metier. Perhaps that is my part. Perhaps death is the prayer I answer. But can a fish or any other creature afflicted with a private tongue pray? And the mute? Can I pray? My thoughts are wet.
Later for answers. First to shore. The sun sets, etc. Twilight, a multitude of strokes, darkness. No birds but lights show me the way. I've done well. Brighter. Close enough to hear laughter. Couples frolic on the beach. Singing. Small fires and lamps throw teeming youth into hectic foreground. Even shadows are happy. I might join them except some of them, perhaps all, pray. Must make a wide pass. I swim toward a dark patch of beach. My feet touch the bottom. I stand. I struggle a little through abundant supplicants. I sit in sand. My breath returns. Turning back to the ocean, I leave it with no regrets. Such variety in that grave! I make my way to rocks wherein I may hide. In a little tumble of a grotto, no larger than a folded man, I find security. The air is warm. No sooner do I draw my knees to my chest when pitch pours over my eyes, it is Dr. Creep.

48) I have been adrift, above engine and sail, practicing indifference for the last seventeen days. The boat widely pivots about unseen contorsions of water. Water is everywhere but for a simple line of land I sometimes glimpse, a few lights, when dark. I should have kept my two Knights, so heavy is my solitude, only for a moment to only one more moment. Perhaps another. I have sun so bright it brings to my ocean a kind of fire. I have dark clouds, more commonly. Clouds help me to see into greater depths of this water world. Seems I've a special affinity for birds, they seek me out, they come all the way out here to rest, perched four square against the wind which brought them. I've nothing to offer but my brooding self. Can't imagine what they see in me. Especially after a bad episode which sent them away for a day. One bird, a gull, was injured. Must have happened along the way, but it fell from the sky onto the deck. I heard it collide while I was within an immense coil of thick rope where I have taken to sleeping. The gull was to its feet at once. Then I could see how slack was its left wing. It hung like the drapes of a whore house, not red drapes but a pure white, a lay of white feathers disordered by the wind. If you know gulls then you know they share a monstrous trait: should one of their kind be hurt in some way others will gather around it in an ever closing circle or noose, to be poetical, and begin pecking at their injured kind. The gull will finally die from this assault, but slowly, over a cruel length of time. I have watched this occur when I was of a more brutish turn of mind, back when I delighted in ugly natural justice. But now that I have also killed my kind, through not fault of my own, and now that I have found the sense of it obscure, even if self serving, I can no longer tolerate pecking or scratching or clawing, biting, crushing, or rasping with a rough tongue, as do the lions, or piercing, sucking or poison spitting, these and many more torments, I can no longer tolerate it among generally similar creatures. All may hunt, all may inflict any grim technique unto a prey's death. I can't care about that or I would be up all night and day of every day, an interfering busybody bringing only starvation. But cruelty, as afore mentioned?... NO! So, when this cracked winged gull fell from the sky, I was waiting in my coil of sea rope to break the circle, as it were. (Listen to me! I am a heap of shit, as it were.) Other gulls began to gather round. One or two made a lazy pass, looking elsewhere, across the bow, behind at a black patty of shit they just let go, or above, should it please the god of birds that it suddenly strikes the busted gull atop its downy skull. Stop! I rise from hiding and heave a ship's tool, a wooden, beautifully lathed thing meant to do something. My aim was precise. I clobbered an offending gull. All others wheeled away, pronto. The panicked noise was first pleasing to me until I saw the one I hit, too, had suffered a broken wing. Now two birds dragged wings like whores' drapes, not red, but white.