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.