I look up just as the sun quits the sky. I am sprawling in a white wrought-iron chair in the paved court of cafes, the iron finery is biting into my back a little, the table is streaked with sunset bands on the glass top. Heavy and tippy at once. Bands of gold and rust light cut across my coffee ring. The ticket is still there in my right hand on my right thigh. A little wind toys with it there, the battered paper is soft and tough as a piece of linen. Why can’t I awake from this dream? This is an ugly dream. These words seem to come from an old song. I came from the village ... the village named for the sheep fold that was the first thing probably built there, where the high way broadens on the mountain of the heavens/constellations of the spring. When I was in my third year at the College of Narrators, Twisse, who was our ward resident, passed word of the draft around and told us to get in our exemption forms early. Next thing I know I pull a pink lot from an envelope in the mail room and stand staring at it, welded to the spot.

“How did that happen?” Twisse asked, peering over my shoulder. He took the paper gingerly in his hands. “No,” his head shaking, “you should go to see the Uz about this.”

Twisse walked away with his sharp, upturned nose in the air. My friend Spiena was with me and rested a hand on my shoulder.

“Run away,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Stay with Blue Loom Pigsty, or—your other uncle, whatever his name was.”

“Lard Loom Blossom.”

“If you can keep out of sight for a few months, you’ll probably be forgotten.”

“I’d be killed.”

“You might,” he says sadly. “But you take the same chance in the war.”

“What about my degree?”

“You can forget your degree. Everyone here would certainly sympathize with you.”

“I should try at least to clear this up with the Uz,” I say. My mind is like a motionless reflection in a piece of glass. My thoughts are frozen in place, too frightened to move.

“Oh he won’t do anything!” Spiena said with a look of disgust. “You might as well tell your troubles to these chairs.”

“I have my copies of the documents. I have my dated registration. I kept everything just in case.”

“Eh. I suppose he might listen, but, that’s only because anything is possible with these administrators. He’s white.”

Spiena shrugged his meaty shoulders.

“I honestly don’t believe they really think at all.”

“—Where would I go, if I had to run?”

“Back into the mountains ...?” Spiena said unhelpfully.