Love and God bless you—
Mumsy xxx
Six.
Is this the first time my two consciousnesses have fully merged? Is this the first time my two selves have been aware of the other? Have I mingled as surely as hot soup and cream, or am I still closer to the never-the-twain style of oil and water? Oil and water, at any rate, is what I see. It’s what I smell as well as I am lowered, a rope around my waist, by a squad of fellow prisoners, up above me, still serving their time but wishing me well for the future. My sentence has been concluded; in this desert reality I am leaving the ship, my time spent, and in jerky motions I am heading down towards the rowboat. I can’t see myself. There is no third person, omniscient pair of eyes I can use to view how badly or well my body appears. I feel strong. I know that much. As I take my seat in the boat, the muscles I’ve used for years to row a ship that never moves—these muscles sigh and relax. I won’t be needing them in the short term. What I need is a drink of water. I’ll do anything for water, I think as the computer registers the extra weight, my weight, and sets off back in the direction of the shore and the township. My welcoming committee consists of a single person, dressed in black from head to toe, the hood obscuring his face included. When he looks up from his inspection of the oil- smiles on the sand by his feet, I can see his face, weathered and bruised but not old. He looks about thirty. It is Noor. He sports a largely black beard, in which zigzag filaments of the purest white hair. The beard stretches down to his clavicle.
Welcome back, he bids me.
Bids me warmly? Enthusiastically? Not a bit of it, no. Noor is here on duty, nothing but; to add to this air of non-committal there is something ill-at-ease about the man, the hood serving only to support my contention he doesn’t wish to be recognised. What language are we speaking? It has not crossed my mind to question our mutual understanding in this desert landscape—it’s only my memory—yes, memory!—of the screws’ faces in my cell when I’m speaking in tongues that makes me ponder now. In the language we speak I say: