another struggle is here at play.

For most often when we read, we imagine there is but one author at work. In this case, unfortunately—sorrowfully, tragically—that is not so. I thought once that it was, that I was the sole author of this adventure. This project is one I have worked for almost a lifetime, years spent mapping out a path that leads to a deeper sort of treasure—a map of maps that leads to the secret of life.

Poor fool am I. I have labored in blindness. I have not, in all these years, been working alone. An other lurks in these pages. A shadow author who erases and destroys, who reverses the signs, toes out instructions drawn in the dirt, remaps the stars and their hidden destinies—destinies I’ve tried to lead you to.

I fear there are less ways out of this maze. Perhaps none.

Do not trust anyone.

Henceforth, friend, you must put on a mask: henceforth, in this tale, you are not You. Go now in disguise, hiding from the hidden other: you are, rather, the he and the she ,the they and the we—the waves of the sea—the stranger in the window—the old woman in the street. You are not merely reader, are no hapless wanderer going through doorway after doorway. You are the fortune-teller, the Captain, the office worker bickering about the cable bill.

Only in this way shall you remain alive for the battles yet to come.

Otherwise you will be gone. Erased from the story.

Quickly now—I hear steps. The other is coming. I hear their steps. Find a place and a person in which to hide and there, through all the time these pages remain, reside.)