My only evidence regarding what the sightless unseen ones are like is derived from lumps of blindmatter marked with the names of their defunct nags. The shape of the engraved marks on the particular piece of blindmatter before me makes it appear like a wide, bulging, dark Eye with curled black lashes. The inscription, 'Also Georgiana Wife of the Above' on the slab of blindmatter alongside makes it appear like an Eye that is glaucomatous and afflicted with a cataract. Five little lozenges of this blindmatter are arranged in a neat row beside these and inscribed Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias and Roger.
Wherever I look the lower half of the world is saturated with a liquid which renders it reflucent, bisected by a line of liquid dark enough to be reflective moving crookedly towards an expanse of liquid ceaselessly reaching towards solidity and contained by the horizon. It is an afternoon towards evening, grey, with a moving nothingness cold enough to produce a tear when I turn towards it. This bleak place hispidite with green lashes surrounding an artificial pupil of solid blindmatter constructed by disrespectful nags in such a way as to dishonour the Eyes they serve is contained within unmoving lids of blindmatter just as solid but more low; the dark flat wilderness beyond the lids, intersected with long narrow ducts and swellings and glyphs of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines, with scattered four-hoofed nags of large brown Eyes lowering their Eyes to rest almost upon it, is the lower half of the world; the low leaden line beyond is liquid moving within a duct; the restless glaring vitreous body from which the nothingness is rushing is liquid moving beneath the lid of the horizon; and the cause of my momentary quiverings which are causing liquid to begin to move beneath my lids is my nag.
A two-hoofed nag starts up from invisibility among the slabs of blindmatter which cover the sightless unseen ones at the brow of the tower of blindmatter. The hole in its face moves, and I feel myself being drawn a little back by the involuntary recoiling of my nag.
A pair of fearful Eyes, of coarse grey, with a great stye on one lower lid. Eyes with no spectacles, and with broken blood vessels, and with an old rag tied just above them like a lifted blindfold. Eyes who have been soaked in tears, and sealed with mud, and bruised about with unseeing objects, and irritated by the introduction of sand, and stung by smoke, and torn on the lids by something sharp; who blink, and are afflicted by a tic, and glare and narrow; and whose orbs shudder in their sockets as they seize me with a stare.
The rough nag extends one of the implements its kind uses to remove the gummy secretions which accumulate during periods of unconsciousness, and grasps my nag by the corner of my saddle. The hole in its face moves coarsely, and I sense through my saddle a slight alternating vibration of the type sometimes produced by my nag when it is with others of its kind.
I turn to see the implement with which my nag rubs me when I am tired extended towards a group of tiny stables, on the flat near the inexhaustible duct among the beams sprouting lashes and the beams without lashes, much smaller than the tower of blindmatter.
The grey Eyes look at me for a moment before their rough nag reaches below me and causes the upper and lower halves of the world to be transposed. When the world comes to itself – for that nag is so sudden and strong that it makes the world rotate about a horizontal axis before me – when the world comes to itself, I say, the horizon is minutely wider and my perspective on my surroundings is altered, markedly regarding those things which require effort to focus upon and negligibly regarding those things which are in focus without effort. My saddle communicates the tremblings of my nag, stranded on an upright slab of blindmatter, as the rough nag pokes pieces of an unseeing thing into the hole in its face.
A glistening thing alike to the naked nags of those who perch on retractable poles extends its tentative pinkness from this hole and leaves around it the glistening trail by which its passing is recorded. The hole in the face moves and the face moves and the Eyes of the rough nag are flung about. I think that I will become over-wet, though I feel no acute movement of the nothingness, nor am I irritated by dust or by small broken pieces of things. I contain my moisture, and when my vision clears I see the rough nag gallop unevenly a short distance before the grey Eyes, twisting themselves and their saddle about, bring the beast to a halt.
It returns and the grey Eyes examine the glyphs upon the slabs of blindmatter with which I am most familiar. They then alternate the dark gaze of their attention between one of their nag's hocks, which bears a crude and cumbersome example of the adornments nags sometimes hang about themselves to attract attention, and me in my fragile saddle.
Their nag then comes close to mine, caught upon the blind slab, and takes it by both of the upper appendages with which my nag displays for me the various aspects of interesting objects. My nag is tilted back so that my resting gaze approaches the vertical. The grey Eyes look most powerfully down into me, and I look most helplessly up into them.
In the periphery of the world I am aware of the hole moving in the rough nag's face and of tears running from the hole as it works. Each time the hole grows still my saddle is tilted a little more and the grey Eyes look down more powerfully, giving me a greater sense of helplessness and disorder.
I become unfocused and disoriented. My nag grasps for purchase upon the slippery axes of the dimensions. I receive a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the blind tower vaults over the brazen likeness of a winged nag with which it irritates the zenith.
My nag is then held in such a way that the bright hemisphere of reality is restored to its natural collimation. But the grey Eyes widen until I hang beneath a grey vault shot with radiating fibres, the reflecting pupil drawing me towards its glass, the blank interstices of two sets of lids aligning their spasms into a single pulse.
I swim up towards the dark sun, which grows larger with each pulse, stretching itself across its private sky until all is black, vitreous, aware. In this all-seeing sky a new sun rises, looks back at me in fear; in the Eye I see myself, reflected, staring, perched on my leather couch. Now, I am not alone, as I may think I am. There is another me, visible to all except myself, in comparison with which other me I am identical. That other me sees the things I see. We have a secret way, peculiar to ourselves, of acting together, under normal circumstances, for all practical purposes as if we were but one me placed in the middle of the saddle. It is in vain for me to attempt to be free of that other me. I may lock my door, may be warm in bed, may tuck myself up, may draw the covers over myself, may think myself comfortable and safe, but if a light acts on the other me, it will cause a reaction, not only in the me affected but in myself. I blink. I see the other me look back at me from behind the mirrored sky. I blink. I find it very hard to hold myself in focus. I blink. The heavens pulse. I blink.
My awareness of my existence, that is to say my awareness of things other than myself, is restored by a sudden uprushing of the world about the piston of my nag. The scene is restored to its familiar perspective, and in it the rough nag displays a series of facial spasms before turning the grey Eyes' saddle briefly towards the glistening lower half of the world.
At the same time, that nag twists both its upper appendages about its quivering body - as if to express a tear - and trots unevenly towards the lids of the great blind Eye of our meeting. As I see it growing smaller, picking its way among the tangle of green lashes that bound the styes on the leading edge of the lid, it looks to me as if it were creeping into the blind spots of the sightless unseen ones, as if fearing that their Eyes may spring open at any moment.
When it comes to that point beyond which I must no longer make an effort to keep things in focus, it gets over the lid like a nag whose lower limbs are not fully in its control, and then turns round to display me and my nag to the grey Eyes. When I see it turning I set my saddle towards the place I view with least surprise, and my young nag makes the best use of its lower appendages. But presently I twist my saddle about and see the grey nag shrinking towards the line of dark liquid moving within a duct in the lower half of the world, still squeezing itself with its upper appendages and picking its way with halting hooves among the foreign bodies resting here and there in the bloodshot orbit of a world periodically submerged in a discharge of tears.
The lower half of the world is just a long black horizontal line now, as my nag stops so that I may look back, and the duct upon it is just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the upper half of the world is just a row of long glaring red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the duct, I can faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seem to possess verticality; one of these is like half a pair of spectacles standing on its lug in such a way that it could focus the sight of those who float at the liquid margins of the world if light were shining through it - a thing better seen from a distance; the other rather like the other half of these spectacles, half folded, with ribbon hanging to it so that the spectacles may be hung about a nag's neck. The grey Eyes' nag is moving unevenly towards this latter, as if it were the wearer come back and going to put them on again. I am affected by nystagmus when I see this, and as I see the four-footed nags lifting their saddles so that their masters may gaze in that direction, it seems as if they see this too. I pass the hasty beam of my gaze in a full circle over the lower half of the world but cannot find the thing that makes me search. By now I am losing focus, and my nag takes me swiftly to the place with no surprises.
Wherever I look the lower half of the world is saturated with a liquid which renders it reflucent, bisected by a line of liquid dark enough to be reflective moving crookedly towards an expanse of liquid ceaselessly reaching towards solidity and contained by the horizon. It is an afternoon towards evening, grey, with a moving nothingness cold enough to produce a tear when I turn towards it. This bleak place hispidite with green lashes surrounding an artificial pupil of solid blindmatter constructed by disrespectful nags in such a way as to dishonour the Eyes they serve is contained within unmoving lids of blindmatter just as solid but more low; the dark flat wilderness beyond the lids, intersected with long narrow ducts and swellings and glyphs of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines, with scattered four-hoofed nags of large brown Eyes lowering their Eyes to rest almost upon it, is the lower half of the world; the low leaden line beyond is liquid moving within a duct; the restless glaring vitreous body from which the nothingness is rushing is liquid moving beneath the lid of the horizon; and the cause of my momentary quiverings which are causing liquid to begin to move beneath my lids is my nag.
A two-hoofed nag starts up from invisibility among the slabs of blindmatter which cover the sightless unseen ones at the brow of the tower of blindmatter. The hole in its face moves, and I feel myself being drawn a little back by the involuntary recoiling of my nag.
A pair of fearful Eyes, of coarse grey, with a great stye on one lower lid. Eyes with no spectacles, and with broken blood vessels, and with an old rag tied just above them like a lifted blindfold. Eyes who have been soaked in tears, and sealed with mud, and bruised about with unseeing objects, and irritated by the introduction of sand, and stung by smoke, and torn on the lids by something sharp; who blink, and are afflicted by a tic, and glare and narrow; and whose orbs shudder in their sockets as they seize me with a stare.
The rough nag extends one of the implements its kind uses to remove the gummy secretions which accumulate during periods of unconsciousness, and grasps my nag by the corner of my saddle. The hole in its face moves coarsely, and I sense through my saddle a slight alternating vibration of the type sometimes produced by my nag when it is with others of its kind.
I turn to see the implement with which my nag rubs me when I am tired extended towards a group of tiny stables, on the flat near the inexhaustible duct among the beams sprouting lashes and the beams without lashes, much smaller than the tower of blindmatter.
The grey Eyes look at me for a moment before their rough nag reaches below me and causes the upper and lower halves of the world to be transposed. When the world comes to itself – for that nag is so sudden and strong that it makes the world rotate about a horizontal axis before me – when the world comes to itself, I say, the horizon is minutely wider and my perspective on my surroundings is altered, markedly regarding those things which require effort to focus upon and negligibly regarding those things which are in focus without effort. My saddle communicates the tremblings of my nag, stranded on an upright slab of blindmatter, as the rough nag pokes pieces of an unseeing thing into the hole in its face.
A glistening thing alike to the naked nags of those who perch on retractable poles extends its tentative pinkness from this hole and leaves around it the glistening trail by which its passing is recorded. The hole in the face moves and the face moves and the Eyes of the rough nag are flung about. I think that I will become over-wet, though I feel no acute movement of the nothingness, nor am I irritated by dust or by small broken pieces of things. I contain my moisture, and when my vision clears I see the rough nag gallop unevenly a short distance before the grey Eyes, twisting themselves and their saddle about, bring the beast to a halt.
It returns and the grey Eyes examine the glyphs upon the slabs of blindmatter with which I am most familiar. They then alternate the dark gaze of their attention between one of their nag's hocks, which bears a crude and cumbersome example of the adornments nags sometimes hang about themselves to attract attention, and me in my fragile saddle.
Their nag then comes close to mine, caught upon the blind slab, and takes it by both of the upper appendages with which my nag displays for me the various aspects of interesting objects. My nag is tilted back so that my resting gaze approaches the vertical. The grey Eyes look most powerfully down into me, and I look most helplessly up into them.
In the periphery of the world I am aware of the hole moving in the rough nag's face and of tears running from the hole as it works. Each time the hole grows still my saddle is tilted a little more and the grey Eyes look down more powerfully, giving me a greater sense of helplessness and disorder.
I become unfocused and disoriented. My nag grasps for purchase upon the slippery axes of the dimensions. I receive a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the blind tower vaults over the brazen likeness of a winged nag with which it irritates the zenith.
My nag is then held in such a way that the bright hemisphere of reality is restored to its natural collimation. But the grey Eyes widen until I hang beneath a grey vault shot with radiating fibres, the reflecting pupil drawing me towards its glass, the blank interstices of two sets of lids aligning their spasms into a single pulse.
I swim up towards the dark sun, which grows larger with each pulse, stretching itself across its private sky until all is black, vitreous, aware. In this all-seeing sky a new sun rises, looks back at me in fear; in the Eye I see myself, reflected, staring, perched on my leather couch. Now, I am not alone, as I may think I am. There is another me, visible to all except myself, in comparison with which other me I am identical. That other me sees the things I see. We have a secret way, peculiar to ourselves, of acting together, under normal circumstances, for all practical purposes as if we were but one me placed in the middle of the saddle. It is in vain for me to attempt to be free of that other me. I may lock my door, may be warm in bed, may tuck myself up, may draw the covers over myself, may think myself comfortable and safe, but if a light acts on the other me, it will cause a reaction, not only in the me affected but in myself. I blink. I see the other me look back at me from behind the mirrored sky. I blink. I find it very hard to hold myself in focus. I blink. The heavens pulse. I blink.
My awareness of my existence, that is to say my awareness of things other than myself, is restored by a sudden uprushing of the world about the piston of my nag. The scene is restored to its familiar perspective, and in it the rough nag displays a series of facial spasms before turning the grey Eyes' saddle briefly towards the glistening lower half of the world.
At the same time, that nag twists both its upper appendages about its quivering body - as if to express a tear - and trots unevenly towards the lids of the great blind Eye of our meeting. As I see it growing smaller, picking its way among the tangle of green lashes that bound the styes on the leading edge of the lid, it looks to me as if it were creeping into the blind spots of the sightless unseen ones, as if fearing that their Eyes may spring open at any moment.
When it comes to that point beyond which I must no longer make an effort to keep things in focus, it gets over the lid like a nag whose lower limbs are not fully in its control, and then turns round to display me and my nag to the grey Eyes. When I see it turning I set my saddle towards the place I view with least surprise, and my young nag makes the best use of its lower appendages. But presently I twist my saddle about and see the grey nag shrinking towards the line of dark liquid moving within a duct in the lower half of the world, still squeezing itself with its upper appendages and picking its way with halting hooves among the foreign bodies resting here and there in the bloodshot orbit of a world periodically submerged in a discharge of tears.
The lower half of the world is just a long black horizontal line now, as my nag stops so that I may look back, and the duct upon it is just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the upper half of the world is just a row of long glaring red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the duct, I can faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seem to possess verticality; one of these is like half a pair of spectacles standing on its lug in such a way that it could focus the sight of those who float at the liquid margins of the world if light were shining through it - a thing better seen from a distance; the other rather like the other half of these spectacles, half folded, with ribbon hanging to it so that the spectacles may be hung about a nag's neck. The grey Eyes' nag is moving unevenly towards this latter, as if it were the wearer come back and going to put them on again. I am affected by nystagmus when I see this, and as I see the four-footed nags lifting their saddles so that their masters may gaze in that direction, it seems as if they see this too. I pass the hasty beam of my gaze in a full circle over the lower half of the world but cannot find the thing that makes me search. By now I am losing focus, and my nag takes me swiftly to the place with no surprises.
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Epigraph:
There are other worlds, but they are all in this one.
(Paul Eluard)
Simply put, the Narrator is the 'I' (or 'Eye') of the story.
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