:24:01
l shove in my dim little torch,
and there he stands...
:24:06
waiting for me.
:24:10
He raises his matted head.
:24:12
He opens his great square teeth,
and he says:
:24:15
''Why? Why me? Why, ultimately, me?
:24:19
''Do you imagine you can account for me...
:24:22
''totally, infallibly,
inevitably account for me?
:24:24
''Poor Dr. Dysart.''
:24:30
Of course,
l've stared at such images before...
:24:33
or been stared at by them,
whichever way you look at it.
:24:36
Weirdly, often now with me,
the feeling is that...
:24:39
they are staring at us.
:24:42
And in some quite palpable way...
:24:45
they precede us.
:24:47
Meaningless, but unsettling.
:24:52
ln either case, this particular one...
:24:54
this huge, implacable head
is the most alarming yet.
:24:59
lt asks questions l've avoided
all my professional life.
:25:11
A child is born into a world of phenomena,
all equal in their power to enslave.
:25:15
lt sniffs, it sucks, it strokes its eyes
over the whole, uncountable range.
:25:20
Suddenly, one strikes.
:25:22
Then another. Then another.
:25:24
Why?
:25:25
Moments snap together,
/ike magnets forging a chain of shack/es.
:25:29
Why?
:25:30
/ can trace them.
/ can, with time, pu// them apart again.
:25:33
But why, at the start,
they were ever magnetized at a//...
:25:36
why those particu/ar moments of experience
and no others...
:25:39
l do not know, and nor does anybody else!
:25:45
lf l don't know...
:25:48
if l can never know...
:25:49
what am l doing here?
:25:52
/ don't mean c/inica//y or socia//y doing,
but fundamenta//y.
:25:57
These whys, these questions,
are fundamental.