know what it means,” said Cipriano.
They were sitting on the mats in Ramón’s room, in the heat before the rain came, towards the end of the rainy season.
“Stand up!” said Ramón.
Cipriano stood up at once, with that soft, startling alertness in his movement.
Ramón came quickly to him, placed one of his hands over Cipriano’s eyes, closing them. Ramón stood behind Cipriano, who remained motionless in the warm dark, his consciousness reeling in strange concentric waves, towards a centre where it suddenly plunges into the bottomless deeps, like sleep.
“Cipriano?”—the voice sounded so far off.
“Yes.”
“Is it dark?”
“It is dark.”
“Is it alive? Is the darkness alive?”
“Surely it is alive.”
“Who lives?”
“I.”
“Where?”
“I know not. In the living darkness.”
Ramón