They race through the corridor now. The air from the outside is colder. Dirk doesn’t look through the bars anymore. His clumsy body doesn’t concern him now. He can feel the end is close. He forgets the children are with him and then he remembers the children are with him and then he forgets. He thinks of the Mixed-up Man and he tells himself he’s got to remember things. He reminds himself of everything. He reminds himself to remember. He refuses to forget the end.

He has no idea how fast or slow he’s actually going. Passing bars. Metallic echoes. A boy tugs at Dirk’s pants.

What is it?

Mine was different, the boy says.

They are moving so fast now.

What do you mean?

Dirk worries for a moment that he can’t remember what the kid is talking about and that he should be able to.

The boy says, The whispers I heard. The things I was told.

What did they tell you? Dirk asks, running.

They told me that freedom is doing something you would never ordinarily do. Freedom is leaving the person you’re used to being behind. Real freedom is doing something so dreadful that you have no choice but to turn your back on yourself. Do you understand?

Dirk wants to stop. He wants to address this child. He wants to tell him that what he heard back there was horribly wrong.

But there’s no time for that. The slithering crunching crawling howling metal-on-metal metal-on-bone grinding mopped guts grates bars bending blood and fog

ENDS.

The path ends.

No more bars. No more cage.

Dirk drops the lamppost. They don’t need it anymore.

They’ve reached the end.

And the children scream.

Dirk is confused. What he sees is beautiful. A landscape fans open before them, small withered shrubs far from one another, open space, colors so bright Dirk squints.

A boy says LOOK just as Dirk sees a costume of some kind on the ground. His eyes adjust and he sees it’s a gorilla suit, unzipped, left behind.

How could you do this? a child yells.

There is a white wind. It blows through Dirk’s hair and he brings a six-fingered hand to shield his eyes from it. He sees a child rendered dust by the gust.

How could you show this to us!

Dirk’s eyes are open and he is trying but he can’t find the children in all the white wind.

How could you! they yell.

How could you show this to us!

Dirk’s eyes water from the wind. Tears run down his face. He reminds himself to remember every detail. He hears the children taken in the wind. He hears the wind above all else. And he is blinded by it. What he sees is beautiful.

Ten feet beyond the gorilla suit, crouched behind a shrub, is a naked woman looking back at him.