But the fact is, Duncan didn’t see them as they really were, only as he wanted them to be: a society of visionaries, of dreamers, of revolutionaries. Apparently so enthralled by them that he lost his wits for a time, Duncan became antisocial and avoided me. (Who could blame me, considering your attitude then? So similar to your attitude toward Mary. Oh, the irony, considering her attitude toward AFTOIS.) As these crackpots began to take up more and more of his time, he began to forget to bathe. He didn’t change his clothes for weeks on end. He babbled to himself. (I missed Mary terribly. I missed her so much, Janice. I don’t know if you can conceive of how much I missed her.)

Worst of all, Duncan assumed more and more responsibility for the AFTOIS newsletter, as Lacond became sicker, meaning that Duncan wrote less as his increased editorial duties ate up his time.

Like Lacond, Duncan did not censor theories in conflict with his own. Duncan believed, given the inability of most “experts” to absorb the truth about the gray caps, that all outlandish theories should be given an airing, regardless of their validity. He thought that this would make minds receptive to the unusual and improbable, “softening resistance,” as he used to mutter, “to reality. A kind of general insurrection against the complacent surface of things.” (For all the good it did me.)

To this end, the journal, which he edited more and more “in the name of” the still-living Lacond—even writing essays under Lacond’s name—became even more eccentric, and thus ever more dismissed, unread by a populace living in denial. (But some of these theories were beautiful and elegant, no matter how wrong-headed. For example, “morelmancy”—divination of the future from mushrooms … or, as you called it, much to my amusement, “a flowering of spores, long dormant, a colorful array—of insanity.” Not everything beautiful has to be true to have value, you know.)

At least Duncan had seen the truth, or a kind of truth, firsthand. All the rest of these people sitting in their glorified clubhouse listening to why intelligent mushrooms were going to rise to the surface one day and kill everyone—and, in some cases, why they were going to enjoy the experience—these people hadn’t seen the truth. They just didn’t know any better—they were guessing. They were lonely and screaming out for company, or for something to keep out the darkness. Even a crackpot theory is better than no theory at all. Than nobody. Than an abyss.

Like the hole that lies behind me, leading Truff knows where. (Truff may not know where it leads, having more important things on His mind, but you and I both know it leads into the underground. Let me evoke Truff in a more appropriate context: for Truff’s sake, stop being so melodramatic!)