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<div style="font-color: black"><b>From:</b> <a
moz-do-not-send="true" title="crushtv@gmail.com"
href="mailto:crushtv@gmail.com">James Wynn</a> </div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span"
color="#000000">From OBW:<br>
</font><font class="Apple-style-span"
color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="2">"Once,
as I lay there at the bottom of the pit,...</font></div>
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> Gerry wrote:<br>
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<div style="FONT-FAMILY: calibri; COLOR:
rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: small">> > It
happened *after* Horn came to himself and sat
up.</div>
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<div>> Gerry, that's not what he wrote. He explicitly
says, "Once, as I lay there at the </div>
<div>> bottom of the pit". The point in the story is
undetermined but it is BEFORE</div>
<div>> he sat up. It straightforwardly the opposite of
your reading.</div>
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<div>You’re forgetting the *thirst*. It was when he came to
himself and sat up that he noticed he was thirsty. When
the long-nosed man sent him on his astral voyage, he told
Nettle he was dying of thirst. So the long-nosed man must
have come after Horn came to himself and sat up. He lay
there both before and after sitting up that time. What
else would he do to rest? He could not climb walls or
lick dew for days on end. So “once as I lay there” tells
us nothing. But the thirst tells us the sequence of
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<br>
Gerry, Gerry, Gerry... Sigh. I post the text again with the (what I
mistakenly thought was unnecessary) excised text. :<br>
<br>
***************<br>
The first paragraph relates events AFTER he encountered and
discoursed with Krait. <br>
<br>
<blockquote>Last night I stopped writing because I could not bring
myself to describe the rest of that day, or the night that
followed it, or the day that followed that, the day on which I
licked dew from the sides of the pit, lying on my belly at first,
then kneeling, then standing—and at last, when the Short Sun
peeped over the rim and the dew was almost gone, wiping the stone
above my head with fingers that I thrust into my mouth the moment
they felt damp. Altogether I got two mouthfuls of water, at most.
No more than that, certainly, and very likely it was less. <br>
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<br>
The next event relates to EARLIER only shortly after he had
encountered Krait.<br>
<br>
<blockquote> Earlier I had prayed, then cursed every god in my heart
when the rescuer they sent had proved to be Krait. On that day I
did not pray, or curse, or any such thing. <br>
</blockquote>
<br>
NOW the rhythm of is telling upended. You have been tricked by
Wolfe's subtle story-telling (you are not the first, we've all been
there). The next event takes place even earlier. <br>
<br>
<blockquote> This is what I least wished to write about last night,
but I am going to try to write it down this evening. *Once*, as I
lay there at the bottom of the pit, it seemed to me that a man
with a long nose (a tall man or an immense spider) stood over me.
I did not move or even open my eyes, knowing that if I did he
would be gone. He touched my forehead with something he held, and
the pit vanished. <br>
I was standing in Nettle’s kitchen. She was making soup, and I
watched her add a whole plateful of chopped meat to her kettle and
shake the fire. She turned and saw me, and we kissed and embraced.
I explained to her that I was not really in her kitchen at all,
that I lay at the bottom of a pit in a ruin of the Vanished People
on an island far away, and that I was dying of thirst. <br>
“Oh,” Nettle said, “I’ll get you some water.” <br>
She went to the millstream and brought back a dipper of clean,
cool water for me; but I could not drink. “Come with me,” I told
her. “I’ll show you where I am, and when you give me your water
there I’ll be able to drink it.” I took her hand (yes, Nettle my
darling, I took your hard, hardworking little hand in mine) and
tried to lead her back to the pit in which I lay. She stared at me
then as if I were some horror from the grave, and screamed. I can
never forget that scream. <br>
And I lay in the pit, as before. The Short Sun was burning gold.<br>
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<!--203--><br>
This likely places the events with the long-nosed fellow (our
narrator) on the night before THIS happens (at the beginning of the
chapter:<br>
"Sunlight warmed me. I kept my eyes closed, knowing that it would be
painful to look at the sun."<br>
****************************<br>
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