Slowly he began to make his way across the ruins again, stumbling sometimes, half-falling, jumping from slab of masonry to pile of broken bricks, leaning against the shattered wall of a house with one hand as he inched his way around the ash-pools which he mistrusted, though there was no cause for his wariness as he remembered.
At length, something close to panic began to fill him and he wished very strongly that he had not come to the ruins, wished that he was back amongst people again, amidst orderly streets of neat houses and solid, well-filled shops. He looked about him hopefully and, as if his wish had been; answered by some magical spirit, he saw on the horizon a line of tall, complete-looking buildings which might, possibly be part of a town.
His speed increased; his progress was no longer-such hard going.
And, he noted, laughing at himself for his earlier fancies, the sun was beginning to set. With luck he could make the town before night.
He began to leap from point to point, but he had misjudged his distance from the town and night came while he was. still about a mile away. But he was heartened further by the sight of the lights shining out of the buildings. Perhaps this was even the town he had left? One town was much like another, seen, from the distance. With the lights to guide him he was soon at the town's outskirts. Here the streets were deserted, though illuminated by-splendid lamps, and he guessed that the inhabitants had gone to bed. Getting closer to the city-centre, he heard traffic noises and saw cars moving through the streets, people on the boulevards, cafes open for business.
He ignored the notion that there was something incomplete about the city. He was tired and was seeing things in a. peculiar. perspective. Also the hot sun of the day might well have given him sunstroke.
The city was new to him, though familiar enough in its general layout. It was, like most cities he knew, planned around a central square with the main streets radiating from the square like the spokes from a wheel, with an outer circle of suburbs.
Maldoon entered a cafe and ordered a meal. The proprietor was an old man with a gnomish face and a deferential manner.
He put the plate of food before Maldoon, averting his eyes.
Maldoon began to eat.
Presently a girl, came into the cafe, glanced around at the few available seats and chose one opposite Maldoon. 'Is this seat taken?' she asked him.
He waved his fork and shook his head, his mouth too full for speech.
She smiled and sat down daintily. She picked up the menu and studied it, giving her order to the proprietor who received it with a little bow and hurried back to the kitchen.
'It's a beautiful night for the time of the year,' Maldoon said,' isn't it?'
'Ah, yes… ' She appeared to be confused, 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I hope you don't think I'm… '
'No, no.'
'I have just come in from the ruins,' he told her. 'I was doing a bit of exploring. They stretch for miles and miles.
Sometimes I think they must cover the planet. Does anyone know?'
She laughed. ' You look tired-hadn't you better get some sleep?'
'I'm a stranger here. Can you recommend an hotel?'
'Not really. Being a resident, as it were, I don't know much about the hotels. There's one up the road, though, that looks all right.'
'I'll try that, then.'
Her meal was brought for her, She thanked the proprietor with a quick smile. He saw that she had ordered the same meal.
He let her eat without interruption. Now that he was seated, his body felt numb with tiredness. He looked forward to a good night's sleep.
The girl got up. She looked at him with curiosity.' I'd better show you where that hotel is.' She smiled sympathetically.
'Oh, thanks.' He got up and left the cafe with her. As they walked along the street he thought of something. Shouldn't he have paid for his meal? He couldn't remember. But the owner of the cafe wouldn't have let him walk out like that, anyway, so it must be all right.
He walked along beside the girl, his shoulders feeling as if they were carrying a tremendous weight, his muscles aching and. his legs weak.
How had he managed to cross such a huge area of the ruins? Surely he hadn't walked all that way? What way? How much way? Where way? ' Are you sure you can make it?' said the girl distinctly, her lips close to his ear. She spoke as if repeating herself.
'Yes.'
'Well come on, it's not much further.'
He followed her, but now he was crawling. He heard a voice that was not his own crying: ' Can somebody give me a hand?'
He lay on the uneven surface of the ruins and the sun was… directly over his head. He turned and saw the horizon in the far distance, he turned his eyes in the other direction and there, too, were ruins stretching to the horizon. He felt like a giant spreadeagled and crucified on the ruins. As he pushed himself into a sitting position, his body seemed to diminish until he was normal size again.
Normal size? What was normal size? What yardstick had he with which to measure the ruins? They were of all sizes, all shapes. Yet not one of them, however high, blocked his view of the horizon.
He had lost his jacket and his cigarettes. He stood up unsteadily and stared around him.
Was he some kind of outcast? He couldn't remember. There had to be some reason for his being here. Someone had put him here? People from the city had taken the trouble to transport him here.
Or had they? And if they had, why had they? The problem did not concern him for very long. He began to move over the ruins once again, pausing sometimes to inspect a building that seemed to have been sliced down the centre, leaving its floors intact and exposed like those of a doll's house.
Yet he could find no clue to answer any of the questions which drifted and dispersed in his mind.
By now, he had forgotten about the city, even; had forgotten that he had had a jacket, that he had smoked cigarettes, felt no need for either.
Later, he sat down on a pile of broken tiles and looked around, him. To his left a tower leaned. Though it seemed that something had crushed it from two angles, it still stood upright. His logic told him that it should have fallen, yet the tower was frozen there. He stopped looking at it, but too late to stop the rising sensation of fear which the sight created.
He got up and walked carefully away from the tower, not looking back, and then broke into a stumbling run.
But he saw that all the buildings seemed about to fall, all the towers and houses and columns were pitched at an angle, which said that they must fall.
Why hadn't he noticed it before? What was wrong? With the fear, his knowledge of his identity began to re-emerge.
He remembered his name and a little of the past as far back as his visit to the city. Then he remembered his days-long journey over the ruins, beneath a sun that did not set, a sky. that did not change, seeing on all sides the horizon which should have been obscured by the great piles of ruined architecture and yet was not.
He stopped, shaking with hatred of the ruins, striving to. bring back a memory of before the ruins, but he could not.
What was this? Dream? Drug-vision? Madness? Surely there was something more than the ruins? Had the city been just an illusion? He closed his eyes, his body tottering. In the darkness which came with the closing of his eyes, he said to himself: Well? Maldoon do you still insist on continuing this experiment? Do you still wish to abolish identity and time and space as illusioncreating illusions? And he called back to himself, aloud: ' What do you mean? What do you mean?'
And he opened his eyes again and there were the bright ruins, sharp beneath the great, pale sun in the blue sky. (Sun, sky, ruins+Maldoon=Maldoon-Maldoon.) Now, slowly, he began to calm, his questions and his memories, for what they were worth, drifting apart.