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hand came away sticky with sap (which, I should add, constitutes a
not-insignificant fire hazard). Just as I had begun wiping it clean with my handkerchief, a mad whir of starlings suddenly rose from below me, swarmed my head, savaged my ears, and carried off my hat. I gave chase, but slipped on the clay, and could only watch as my hat was carried off into the rafters, doubtless to serve as a sort of readymade nest. Regaining my feet, I continued cautiously to the top of the stairs, where I encountered a giant knothole in the aforementioned trunk, sug-gesting a grave compromise of its structural integrity. There was also a man inside the knot-hole. He appeared to have been there for some time, because he was quite overgrown with moss. So completely did it swathe his face and limbs that 
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I wondered, and still wonder, whether it was growing on him or from
him, as hair grows naturally from your honored heads. His eyes, too,
were tinged a mossy green - not simply the irises, but the whites
as well (or perhaps I should say "the greens"). We regarded each other
in silence for at least a minute, for his part almost certainly out
of indifference, for mine, bewilder-ment. All the while a steady trickle
of water dripped from the tip of his nose, and a small brown bird
hopped in and out of the folds in his verdant cloak, each time emerging
with some-thing new in its beak: a beetle, a worm, a speckled egg.
When it became apparent to that he did not intend to speak, I stated my name and office and present-ed him with your letter of introduction. But he would not deign to look at it, insisting instead that I produce a ticket. This was, to say the least, a surprising request, and I protested  |
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