Then they stopped growing in the blackness, attaining some predesigned composition, and another kind of growing began: thin filaments of bluish light started sprouting in the spaces between those bulbous thistles of brilliance, running everywhere like cracks up and down a wall. And these threadlike, hairlike tendrils eventually spread across the blackness in an erratic fury of propagation, until all was webbed and stringy in the universal landscape. Then the webbing began to fray and grow shaggy, cosmic moss hanging in luminous clumps, beards. But the scene was not muddled, no more so, that is, than the most natural marsh or fen-like field.
Finally, enormous stalks shot out of nowhere, quickly crisscrossed to form interesting and well-balanced patterns, and suddenly froze. They were a strange shade of green and wore burry crowns of a pinkish color, like prickly brains.
The scene, it appeared, was now complete. All the actual effects were displayed: actual because the one further effect now being produced was most likely an illusion. For it seemed that deep within the shredded tapestry of webs and hairs and stalks, something else had been woven, something buried beneath the marshy morass but slowly rising to the surface.
“Is that a face?” someone said.
“I can begin to see one too,” said the other, “but I don’t know if I want to see it. I don’t think I can feel where I am now. Let’s try not to look at those faces.”
A series of cries from within the little room finally induced Rignolo to open the door, which sent Nolon and Grissul tumbling backwards into the artist’s studio. They lay among the debris on the floor for some time. Rignolo swiftly secured the door, and then stood absolutely still beside it, his upturned eyes taking no interest in his visitors’ predicament. As they regained their feet, a few things were quickly settled in low voices.
“Mr. Nolon, I recognized the place that that room is supposed to be.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“And I’m also sure I know whose face it was that I saw tonight in that field.”
“I think we should be going.”
“What are you saying?” demanded Rignolo.
Nolon gestured toward a large clock high upon the wall and asked if that was the time.
“Always,” replied Rignolo, “since I’ve never yet seen its hands move.”
“Well, then, thank you for everything,” said Nolon.
“We have to be leaving,” added Grissul.
“Just one moment,” Rignolo shouted as they were making their way out. “I know where you’re going now. Someone, I won’t say who, told me what you found in that field. I’ve done it, haven’t I? You can tell me all about it. No, it’s not necessary. I’ve put myself into the scene at last. The abyss with a decor, the ultimate flight! In short— survival in the very maw of oblivion. Oh, perhaps there’s still some work to be done. But I’ve made agood start, haven’t I? I’ve got my foot in the door, my face looking in the window. Little by little, then … forever. True? No, don’t say anything. Show me where it is, I need to go there. I have a right to go.”
Having no idea what sort of behavior a refusal might inspire in the maniacal Rignolo, not to mention possible reprisals from unknown parts, Nolon and Grissul respected the artist’s request.
Into a scene which makes no sound, three figures arrive. Their silhouettes move with distinct, cautious steps across an open field, progressing slowly, almost without noticeable motion. Around them, crisscrossing shafts of tall grasses are entirely motionless, their pointed tips sharply outlined in the moonlight. Above them, the moon is round and bright; but its brightness is of a dull sort, like the flat whiteness that appears in the spaces of complex designs embellishing the page of a book.
The three figures, one of which is much shorter than the other two, have stopped and are standing completely still before a particularly dense clump of oddly shaped stalks. Now one of the taller figures has raised his arm and is pointing toward this clump of stalks, while the shorter figure has taken a step in the direction indicated. The two tall figures are standing together as the short one has all but disappeared into the dark, dense overgrowth. Only a single shoe, its toe angled groundward, remains visible. Then nothing at all.
The two remaining figures continue to stand in their places, making no gestures, their hands in the pockets of their long overcoats. They are staring into the blackness where the other one has disappeared. Around them, crisscrossing shafts of tall grasses; above them, the moon is round and bright.
Now the two figures have turned themselves away from the place where the other one disappeared. They are each slightly bent over and are holding their hands over their ears, as though to deafen themselves to something they could not bear. Then, slowly, almost without noticeable motion, they move out of the scene.
The field is empty once again. And now everything awakes with movement and sound.
After their adventure, Nolon and Grissul returned to the same table in that place they had met earlier that evening. But where they had left a bare table-top behind them, not considering the candleflame within its unshapely green bubble, there were at the moment two shallow glasses set out, along with a tall, if somewhat thin bottle placed between them. They looked at the bottle, the glasses, and each other methodically, as if they did not want to rush into anything.
“Is there still, you know, someone in the window across the street?” Grissul asked.
“Do you think I should look?” Nolon asked back.
Grissul stared at the table, allowing moments to accumulate, then said, “I don’t care, Mr. Nolon, I have to say that what happened tonight was very unpleasant.”
“Something like that would have happened sooner or later,” Nolon replied. “He was too much the dreamer, let’s be honest. Nothing he said made any sense to speak of, and he was always saying more than he should. Who knows who heard what.”
“I’ve never heard screaming like that.”
“It’s over,” said Nolon quietly.
“But what could have happened to him?” asked Grissul, gripping the shallow glass before him, apparently without awareness of the move.
“Only he could know that for certain,” answered Nolon, who mirrored Grissul’s move and seemingly with the same absence of conscious intent.
“And why did he scream that way, why did he say it was all a trick, a mockery of his dreams, that ‘filthy thing in the earth’? Why did he scream not to be ‘buried forever in that strange, horrible mask’?”
“Maybe he became confused,” said Nolon. Nervously, he began pouring from the thin bottle into each of their glasses.
“And then he cried out for someone to kill him. But that’s not what he wanted at all, just the opposite. He was afraid to you-know-what. So why would he—”