Grey clouds passed momentarily over a white moon that was a perfect sphere, and Pry felt something being born. He had been in Old Works his entire life; since childhood ended. Already fifty years. No time at all, he thought, thinking about the ancient and steadfast Brey-BreLoak, watching the old Cyclops - not long enough to really know anything, in his case. Except perhaps the basics of Old Works, of how story worked. Of what a quest was. And, something of the process by which it created one. He knew enough, was all, to know that the sensation/feeling/premonition, that was being given birth to, inside his body, was entirely unique in the history not just of that body, but, well, of that body; of Old Works itself.

Because the fact that he knew what Pheel Cazzo was thinking, did so as he entered his office, meant that the story, the quest, that Pheel, that Old Works - the new one that they – he was: Pheel was - were in the process of hatching - of writing - well for the first time ever, whether they knew it or not; however much they lied to themselves they were in control of it... that thing they were - they were in it too.

That he could read his thoughts. No other interpretation. It meant that they were in it too. It also meant something else he could not confront. And there was no escaping the effect of this terrifying new notion, of its paralysing him.

Pheel Cazzo entered his office, shut the door behind him, sat behind his desk; the back of an office whose walls were merely black panels: planes, cut out of flat non-existence, regarded as being there, and through the neurological process by which Cyclops imposed the way they saw the world on it, made it so. Made it there. Saw it there and therefore it was. Imposed reality literally out of singular eyes; it was the only way anything could exist here. In Old Works, all that existed, by a Cyclops, had to be -

– it was intentionally seen.

Italics: seen.

Cazzo noticed even less than normal that the two Cyclops in opposite corners were, and were there, and were not merely furniture. Not merely the angles themselves. There could be philosophical justifications for this in terms of where they were. In terms of the nature of Old Works. But the truth was they simply didn't exist to him. Unlike the combination of a Cyclops that entered the room only a fraction after he did, mid-sentence haranguing, what was obviously a defeated and physically moribund man, at least in this instant, for not having... Pry didn't know except -

Cazzo lay his head flat against his desk -

Floor, ceiling, walls, just black planes, panels made from planes; seen there, intentionally by beings that -

It was obvious that -

finding it difficult to focus on -

The fact that -

Clua-Sryh -

“- The obvious point of departure here, and really the only thing that should be of any relevance to your state of mind is the fact that you are not in fact dead, but are still alive. People die. You understand that. In fact everyone dies... after... everyone – not me, you understand, this is the first occasion, for me, for that, but still in all in toto, what we are discussing is the remaining fact of your continued existence, as a conscious being, human being I believe, that can live and think, and several other things also - but if you continue to focus on what merely, after all, is a side-effect of a miraculously still continuing existence -”

Pheel would like to have his face against his desk for the rest of his life, at least until his head stopped pounding in the manner in which it currently was – a battalion of Cyclops, in his head, hitting the sides with giant hammers. Also have his heart stop labouring in the fashion it was which was obviously due to a complete lack of blood. It had a lot less to pump and therefore had to get it around faster, he thought, if these observations could be described as thoughts. He was near death.

“You'll survive: the fact you have, means that you will,” said Clua, “... this was not your attitude... during...”

Did he want to die? Had he wanted to die? Was it death he'd been after? Was there a way out of concluding that it had been death, he was after? And then of course why had he wanted to die if in fact he'd wanted to die; which must have been the reason, despite his protestations the night before - it was the night before he'd wanted to do something that would inevitably result in his dying. The night before. Apparently. A thing the outcome of which was death.

He'd really wanted to do something, he was saying to himself, apparently, the outcome of which was death, for reasons having to do with his current mental condition, obviously; why else? - There wasn't another reason. He really wished he could arrive at another conclusion concerning this event that was patently a failed suicide attempt.

“Look at me.”