For that matter, now that I think more deeply, there is a rational reason, if only a small one, for my sense of identification with Will. For he does remind me somewhat of myself in my own undergraduate days, even though any young student probably has certain characteristics that a grown adult might find reminiscent. My body is rather stocky, not unattractive, but it has none of the grace that seems to be assigned to Will’s, and I was never that nonchalant or charming or contemptuous. I was too aware of my pompousness, for one thing, even though I couldn’t do anything about it then. Or now. But I feel almost threatened in any case by that identification. I didn’t like my own participation, emotionally, in the chapter. And I admit that I’m rather abashed at the small coincidence that set me off on this tangent: My full name is Jeffery William Blodgett.

I have the sneaking suspicion that the book is playing a trick on me; that “someone” knew I would be discomforted by such a similarity of names. Furthermore, I suspect that the “someone” may be watching for my reactions.

So except for these notes, I refused to react. I took down the entire chapter as if nothing bothered me at all; as if I had not participated in the scenes; as if the sounds from below the window didn’t sound unreasonably loud and intense; as if I wasn’t suddenly struck by the frightening feeling that my own living room was as hallucinatory in nature as Oversoul Seven’s classroom. And of course my thoughts were accompanied the entire time by the sound of my typing fingers, which, as if thinking by themselves, pounded out the words with amazing rapidity. It takes me far longer, for example, to type up these notes of mine, and I’m uncomfortably aware of the stiffness of my own prose.

I do wish Will hadn’t been introduced into the manuscript, because surely this means that he’ll return in other chapters. Now there is no doubt that the book will continue. In the beginning I told myself that each chapter would be the last and I’d be left with an odd but brief psychological adventure and no more. At least I’m not fooling myself any longer in that regard. Now as I write these lines, I decide to close these notes for tonight, with some dismay, for I find myself in the peculiar position of worrying about a fictional character and wondering whether or not he might commit suicide.