Taking the world on. The world at hand. World out of reach. Traps are set. That’s how it felt, coming down from the north. Lost the waggon, lost the horse. Horse wore out, waggon burned down. Box maker again. Iconoclast city. Fucking as good as dead people. Artist and pupil to bed then, kiss and sweet dreams. I’ll get you out of this comforted the old man uncertainly. For me, never mind, the boy thought. Poor old man, can he ever understand. It’s me, I help him. There is no real help for me. The need to escape is the prison. I’m no more than stories. Good or bad to me, still stories. The boy turned in the bed disturbed by his thoughts. Now they lie backs to each other, bums touching. Not for him the bargaining for good stories. All good, one way or another. Good lies in helping good. Centrepiece for now, old Fishface, poor thing. I’ll do anything to help you, he thought, and turned, laying himself affectionately along the old man’s poor back. Long grown out of its tenderest beauty. Now an old beauty of need for sympathy, need for tenderness, need for love. Even this man on the cross of theirs is beautiful. You’d understand if I could tell you, if I could speak. Beauty of feeling opposed to ugliness of feeling. To save and to help the broken goodness, that’s beautiful. It flowers. Beats bargaining. Give to receive. Would it ever work, improve the situation? Reward itself? Good figure on bad ground? Would there ever be an answer to that one, he wondered. Kissed the old man’s back, asleep poor thing. He too fell down into sleep. Dreamt he was in a long slender canoe on the freshest lake in the richest sunshine. Going diving and swimming with friends, happy like himself. That’s what he dreamt.