Swan knew nothing of these occurrences. He was gone. When he left the Cumulus, it was past two in the morning and he reached the Outside Lands with the moon rising in front of him. He walked through the broad depopulated suburbs during the heat of the next day, up and over the coastal hills the day after; through long stretches of blackened fields and a graveyard of abandoned airplanes in the desert. He walked thoughtlessly. He walked along unknown streets without any regard for the consequences, steering ever eastward. His old fears of being murdered by bandits no longer concerned him. That he could fall and break one of his legs, say, or die slowly of exposure were only transitory thoughts. They came and went like bubbles in foam.
He was in a kind of trance and his eyes barely registered the scenery. What sort of trance was it? The trance of his escape? The trance of disregard? The trance of his gloom and misery? Swan could not have answered these questions, but whatever sort of trance it was, the crazed music of Gut Wedding provided its soundtrack. The songs of the Fairy town played continuously in his mind and he did not stop to eat or drink or sleep.
It was just before evening on the fourth day, as he slogged along a wide crumbling highway, that the storm overtook him. It came upon him suddenly and even its onslaught did not rouse him from his stupor. He kept to his steady pace, ignored the pummeling of the gravel-like raindrops and the water’s resistance against his ankles, only keeping his eyes on the centerline of the road.
As the sun set, an eighteen-wheel slorry that had been launched on autopilot from a distant autonomous factory, came barreling along the highway towards him. On some level, he must have been aware of this, but he made no attempt to adjust his dogged pace or veer from his course. If there had been a human driver inside this speeding vehicle, she might have made an adjustment to avoid the skinny youth marching down the center of the road. But bound as she would be, in this scenario, to deliver superfluous goods to a drowned city on an inflexible schedule, it was unlikely she would have allowed herself time to steer clear of him. The slorry did not swerve or brake, and thundered past just inches from his shoulder. The pounding he received from the displaced air and plumes of water that spewed from its wheels staggered him only briefly. He was already sodden and this near fatal collision did not affect his state of mind in any way. After getting to his feet, he simply continued to lumber forward with his suitcase skimming behind. The pavement’s edge had become invisible. He could barely see the dashed white line. Gusts of wind knocked him to the ground multiple times until, during the darkest stretch of the night, he reached a place where a second highway crossed above his own and blocked the rain. It was this sudden cessation of pounding that awakened him to his surroundings.
He could scarcely make out the cement abutment that slanted upwards to his right, but whether from thought or by instinct, he suddenly felt a need to get away from the rising water, and he tried to scramble up its steep incline. Twice, he lost his footing and his suitcase tumbled down into the flood. Twice, he slid back down to fetch it. On his third attempt, bracing his feet with one hand and two knees, he managed to haul it to the top of the slope.
There, he found a ledge about a yard deep with just enough room for him to crouch. He squatted on it like a gargoyle, shivering in his water-soaked gown. He could see almost nothing, but heard the wind and water as it lashed all around him. Flashes of whitest white light blinded him for seconds at a time, and thunder deafened him. The tempest roared steadily now. Rain water slammed against the overpass and poured over its railings. The wide plain across which he’d been traveling was filling up, and a churning lake was rising ever closer to the little ledge where Swan was perched.
After staring blankly into the chaos for a long time, his body finally began to move. He cleared away bits of scattered gravel with his hands, laid the suitcase down and opened it. Its interior was entirely dry. After pulling off his shoes and peeling the hospital gown from his body, he tossed them away along the ledge. The rough concrete tortured his flesh. His fingers were stiff and unresponsive. He was shivering uncontrollably and again he was reminded of the horror and hatred he felt for life. It was like a hammer blow against his heart, and it was only through thoughtless activity that he was able to pull his fluffy blanket from the suitcase and wrap it around himself. He would have to wait to find out if he’d be swept away.
But then after a while, bored with waiting, bored of lightning and catastrophe, he collapsed onto his side, pulled up his knees and laid his cheek down on the cold concrete. Pieces of debris, large and small, organic and plastic, a vast assortment of trash and sand and soil, crashed against the structure that sheltered him, yet the air was perfectly still in the gap where he lay. He’d happened upon a protected nook at the very edge of chaos. Through the din of swirling water, through howling wind, the despair that filled his being, he listened to the horns and drums and accordions of the Fairies that played continuously in his mind.
And as the music swelled, he slipped into the same overpowering coma-like sleep that had submerged him in the cocoon, and he began to dream perpetually, vivid dreams that concerned himself and Ottala; dreams that flowed from one to another. He ran after her once again, not in the Nature Preserve but through all sorts of strange and perilous surroundings. She ran as if he frightened her. And he chased her so he could tell her he could never be a danger. He wanted to tell her that in spite of all her fears, they had each other. Without him, he wanted to say, they’d both be alone and isolated. But then, inside his dream, he slowly became aware that she was afraid of a different thing. And he became aware that, unlike himself, she was determined to survive.