And he woke again like a thief undetected, invisible therefore, and therefore free. The bronze horse’s hoof stood raised for apparently ever about to trample beneath it the cross of wood faced with tin half beaten half tooled to a filigree that said, or seemed to say, that’s what it takes, a violence, to get at last even this far, mere decoration, nothing close, for example, to those late afternoons of the sun parsing the dead bamboo like fidelity itself when fidelity means for once what it’s always meant—one thing, and the truth another—no, I’d say it more was like seeing for the first time from sea that bit of the land that you’ve always lived on, and watching it slowly become more small, until maybe you lived there, or didn’t, here’s the sea anyway in front of you, here’s the rest, (the waves whispering, as if waves could whisper), here’s what happens, not what’s meant to happen; nothing’s meant to happen…