early in the awake

‘tum can’t really feel the end of sleeps but he can feel the feelers, the ones who can. Or maybe he’s just hearing the shift to a deeper silence when first-awake slips from the chamber. He considers. Yes, first-awake just went out-chamber. You can tell. Shsh maybe? Hardfelt? ‘tum isn’t going to look. He’s playing eyes-closed.

In a moment, ‘tum too slips out. There’s no word for the second person awake. Now you’re just someone walking around in World. The infinity of all-stone reminding you of the preciousness of World. The same yesterwake, this awake, and forever.

Trust the stone, says Marm. But Marm doesn’t really mean you should be padding around World early in the awake with your eyes closed. Eyes-closed is for practice awakes, or for if you forget where you are in World and you want to feel with all-skin or with smell or if you want to echo-pop to find walls. Eight says she can’t see the glims with her eyes closed unless she’s practically kneeling above one and you can feel the heat. But ‘tum can see them pretty far off with his lids down over his balls. He puts that power into his lucky clay. Big pile in there. For example I am the one who slips through. That’s in his clay. Or how he can taste something that’s neither fish nor shroom but somewhere in between.

Wit says what if it’s not in between but instead it’s outside fish and shroom. And ‘tum is like like what and of course Wit has no answer. Except he’s like, well then imagine something that is not. And ‘tum says you. And all that. The thought ends in a lot of splashing in boys bath.

Where does small tabu become big fun? Wit probably thought of that first, too. Wit is thought, ‘tum is action. Is that a thought of Wit or something that ‘tum does?

‘tum stops near Way. His eyes still closed. First-fish beckons yummy left, more as a hint than an outright smell, but ‘tum turns right and footfalls into what’s now the wind, still playing eyes-closed (small tabu).

Wind is little hairs rising on legs. Did he always feel little hairs rising? Is hairs-rising a thing for his clay? Not quite yet. What is the opposite of hairs rising? Hairs falling? Or no hair? Or.

He once asked Marm if clothes were the not-good. Was she surprised by this question? Well she asked why he asked and he said because Women and Men put on garments to do the almost-good like chopping-fish and oil-firing-shroom. She had been talking about something else, about why Women were second, not first. Didn’t second mean there was a first? She didn’t seem to understand his question, because she just talked about how Men were third, which he already knew. You didn’t need Men’s bath or almost-Men’s-bath to know that.

Then his hairs rise more all of a sudden and even though he’s not tabu, ‘tum finds himself running and his lids are open. A game of hide. Now that he’s almost Big where do you hide in World? Unless you open doors. Which you wouldn’t. Unless for some reason you suddenly do.

[end of chapter two]

Picture above is me implied behind the camera a few minutes ago wondering what’s down under all those immense coastal mountains. Picture below is when I discovered old-world in Helena Montana last fall

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