At three o’clock in the morning Eurydice is bound to come into it. After all, why did I sit here like a telegrapher at a lost outpost if not to receive messages from everywhere about the lost Eurydice who was never mine to begin with but whom I lamented and sought continually both professionally and amateurishly. This is not a digression. Where I am at three o’clock in the morning – and by now every hour is three o’clock in the morning – there are no digressions, it’s all one thing.
LET ME NOT BE REAL, the Kraken said again.
There was nothing I could say about that and I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing.
YOU DON’T TELL ME THAT I’M NOT REAL.
Again I didn’t say anything.
THEN I AM REAL. I HAVE BEEN THOUGHT OF TOO MANY TIMES UNTIL THERE HAS COME TO BE SUCH A THING AS I, THE KRAKEN, LIVING WHERE I LIVE AND PERCIPIENT ALWAYS.
Tell me about your beginnings.
IN THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS WAS MY BEGINNING. IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE TERROR.
Whose was the terror?
THE TERROR WAS ITSELF AND THE TERROR WAS OF ITSELF. THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE, THERE WAS NO ONE TO HOLD THE TERROR, THERE WAS ONLY THE TERROR.
Terror of what?
TERROR OF WHAT MIGHT BE, OF UNIVERSES AND WORLDS THAT MIGHT BE, AND THE ILLUSION OF TIME.
What came then?
FROM THE TERROR CAME THE AWARENESS OF IT. FROM THE TERROR CAME A TREMBLING AND A WRINKLING OF THE SILENCE THAT LISTENED.
Nothing else? No one to listen with the silence?
NO ONE TO LISTEN, NO ONE TO HOLD THE TERROR; ONLY THE ELECTRIC SILENCE THAT SHOOK AND WRINKLED AS IT BECAME YOUR MIND.
My mind holding the terror, my mind alone.
