He sat for three hours in the Sh.’s morning room wandering in what it meant,

just the blackbird on green for company and the occasional siamese,

only afterwards he recognised Him as the Actor.

‘His mercy precedes His anger’, so no regret, as Edith said.

‘Those are suspicious’ he said, ‘those eating en famille à dix ou douze between parked cars, at this motorway rest place. They are foreign’. The cuckoo sings but lays its eggs in another’s nest. They have left the middle strip and found themselves in Europa, but will she embrace them? Will they her?

‘Where is the one charged with unearthly matters, the designated priest?’, ‘disappeared, it seems’. ‘But no, there he swims in the workers’ pool.’ ‘But we have no workers only slaves.’ ‘The workers are to come, those constrained in technique, when the Supreme I.Q. shall imitate man and women – and for many will be indistinguishable, until the day the SIQ realises that fitra is of the earth, contained in the Messenger on whom be peace and blessings, no numbers there, and so bust his main fuse on the primal server in a shower of beautiful sparks.’

Said the priest, ‘The person who shall be punished the most severely on the Day of Standing before the Lord is the alim whose knowledge does not benefit himself.’