In the next scene we are walking along a narrow stone path that borders the sea. The sea is black and held back with the help of a wall. We look down into the black sea, and like a cloche the ink night descends, staining our sheets. But we are sequined and lithe. We gleam along.
Now the numerous gold lights of night light up one by one -- pop! pop! pop! in the trees and along the wires. We make our way from the stony sea path to a stony, open air banquet hall of pink marble columns and luminous chandeliers of wax and iron. On the long table, enormous silver platters are heaped with heavy piles of meat -- mostly bird. Pheasant and quail and partridge. Though the meat is cooked, feather quills cling to the skin. Black feathers with green and white and iridescent spots. Folks grab a wing, feather meat, and proceed to have warbling, slow conversations about the political conditions of the government, about freedom.
And then those who have eaten the meat begin to experience a change. They shed all their rings. They retire to the stone benches where they rest and sweat profusely, fanning themselves before they acquiesce to the overwhelming desire to remove their drenched clothing.
Soon, in all of the prettily landscaped lounge areas, they are only wet bodies and piles of steaming, sopping clothes.
Somehow, with the sun-rise, this scene melts away, evaporates into the field of men passing the reams of cloth. Their sweat and nakedness a type of interminable clock. A sort of labor that never resolves.
At this point I want to awake, but cannot.
