The bandages may defend their eyes from the glory of my hand, but they can do nothing to balk its power. I still turn people from my path when I raise it, no door is locked to me—but what do I care about doors? No person is ever really closed to me, either; the light that only I can see cannot fail to reveal who is awake and who is asleep, and I am always shocked anew when I realize just how many sleepers there are, and how many of those who pretend to the great wisdom are not only themselves sleepers, but among the most deeply asleep. Sleep, all who sleep. Awake, all who wake. My hand of glory will never let you learn the truth. It shines only for me. Perhaps that was a mistake I made. Too generous. That light is beautiful, the most beautiful thing of all. I haven’t really seen it yet myself, but it’s so beautiful I already know it in my heart.

There... at the end of the hall, around the corner, past the last office... the emergency door, ajar, as I must have wished! The hand cannot fail.

The chill and blaze of the new year, of January afternoon, falls on me like night. The daylight hides me. You know you don’t belong there. You don’t belong around people. That’s always been true, hasn’t it? We must cleave to those things that have always been true. My hand is pointing, through the bandages, to the horizon—west, I think. Even distance is no barrier to it any more. I can reach out—just let me unwrap it—reach out over the horizon and take hold of space, seize it in the grip of my long, new fingers and pull the distance toward me, pull it right up over the horizon like a heavy comforter, a distance that will stay distant from me even when I’m there, out where I will preside over a solitude so empty even I’m not there, forever alone in the awakened darkness of secret light with my hand of glory.

The Starving of Saqqara

The Starving of Saqqara

I FIRST SAW them set off very dramatically in a case set alone in the middle of the gallery floor, lit from above and below, so that the light scoured every trace of shadow from the creased surfaces of the statue. I know I glanced at them as I came in, and then began drifting along the left-hand wall, allowing the framed images there to pass me by. But I wasn’t looking at the images; I was too aware of the presence of those two behind me, waiting for the moment when I would turn to look at them. When I did, I couldn’t leave them.