(Text of a conversation I had on the train a few days back.)
I wanted to talk to you about guides and guardians in general. Are you all the same order of being?
No. We are many, we are multitudes, we are different one from the other. We are beast and bird, wind and water; beings who resemble men and women and jaguars and crows. We are always with you, always. We are a hair's breadth away at all times.
Remember the other day, when I was asking you why the guides don't step in when people get hurt?
You ask us every day.
Well, yeah, it bothers me. Sorry.
[Image: a man who has suffered an accident whilst mountaineering. He's fallen and is badly hurt. A rescue party stands within eyeshot of him, but they are seperated by a chasm. A bridge has fallen and they can't reach him. The horror of the rescue party, the pain they feel at watching the fallen man suffer, is palpable.]
So, you don't help because you
can't reach?
Yes.
[Emotion: a dreadful sorrow eminates from M-L. R-M-L is weeping like a child. The sound is as lovely and inhuman as her laughter.]
* * *
Don't really know what to make of all this. I think I'm supposed to help them bridge that gulf, somehow; they've been going on about getting me to write this book for them and I think that's got something to do with it.
Oh, boy. This is where I start picking up signals from Lemuria on my welding torch, isn't it?
