Dawn drills and the second world (pp. 459–460)
‘If it is hard,’ he says softly, hard to hear because of the rising wind, ‘difficult, for you to move between the two worlds, from cold hot wind and sun to this inside place inside the lines where is always the same,’ he says, seeming now to study the weatherman’s pointer he holds down and out with both hands, ‘it can be arranged for you gentlemen not to leave, ever here, this world inside the lines of court. You know. Can stay here until there is citizenship. Right here.’ […] ‘Can today put up Testar Lung, for world’s shelter. Sleep bags. Meals brought to you. Never across the lines. Never leave the court. Study here. A bucket for hygienic needs. At Gymnasium Kaiserslautern where I am privileged boy who whining about cold wind, we live inside tennis court for months, to learn to live inside. Very lucky days when they bring us meals. Not possible to cross a line for months of living.’
Context
The second world's dark guarantee: Schtitt, going quiet to menace, offers to make the bounded territory total — residence inside the lines "until there is citizenship," as in his own Kaiserslautern boyhood months of not being permitted to cross a line. The lines Eschaton's players fatally stopped honoring are here honored to the point of internment; the constructive map has its own carceral edge (deLint's translation: "So put a lid on it about the fucking cold").