Day One: A peculiar place, the Iron Republic — inhabited by revolutionaries, devils, university students, devils, ambulatory blurs of light and heat, bees, and devils; in that regard, much like a more confusing Benthic, only here one might spend the day debating the nature of reality not with intoxicated undergraduates, but with the equally intoxicated concept of the nature of reality itself; reality, one notes, cannot hold its liquor, which I suspect explains rather a lot.

Day Nine: Now that time has ceased running backwards and the alphabet no longer attempts to squirm away from my pen, I may jot down with a certain degree of irritation that my favorite waistcoat has been damaged by today’s rain of fish scales, violet ink, and lemon juice, with available replacements prone to whistling vexing popular melodies, offering unsolicited financial advice (lost two-hundred echoes on waistcoat-encouraged investment in imaginary weather device), and combustion; I begin to grow nostalgic for Law.

Day Fifteen Six Twenty-Nine Uncertain: Soul sold, regained, lost in bet, regained again, stolen by bees, found again unexpectedly in bird’s nest made of glass needles and childhood memories (not mine – date back to Second City; river, sun... crocodiles?), may not be one I started out with — but I am no worse the wear for it, if one discounts the spontaneous flashes of magnetism and the craving for cucumber-and-irrational-number flavored custard, and indeed I feel I may have gotten the better of the exchange; in any case, this place is not without its charms, and — despite absence of custard — I am increasingly tempted to stay.