Page 560
A one-page still life, undated, spliced into the middle of the Lenz-and-Green night: lunchtime at E.T.A., Hal flat on his bunk in bright sunlight, hands laced on his chest, while three heads appear at his door in sequence — Troeltsch, Pemulis, Wayne. Nothing happens; that's the scene, and this page is short to match.
Terms, in order of appearance
- photosynthesizing (p. 560) — what plants do with sunlight: pure passive intake, no motion required. Hal's word for himself.
- "N.R." (p. 560) — the tag John Wayne's name has carried since p. 105: no relation.
After you read: three things
1. Three visits, descending. Troeltsch gets one word and silence. Pemulis gets shtick — "The beast has killed and gorged and now lies in the shade of the Baobob tree" — the code-banter of intimates, saying nothing. Wayne gets, and gives, nothing at all: "He didn't say anything and Hal didn't say anything, and they stayed like that for a while." A scale of contact, calibrated downward.
2. The clock is breaths. "Then, 41 breaths later..." — "Over 200 breaths later..." Hal is counting his own breathing; the page's timekeeping runs on his body, nobody else's. Ask what state a person is in when that's the clock.
3. Wayne's head. Given what you saw Pemulis walk in on two nights back (pp. 550–553), Wayne's long wordless look into the room of Avril's son is charged in more than one direction — and the page hands you only the geometry: a head in a door, a while, a smooth withdrawal. The page doesn't gloss it, and neither does this one.
Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.