Raskolnikov hasn’t slept. For days. In his brain, something like white. A wave stopped in mid-leap. Thick, slow, white. Or maybe it’s brain. Brain in his brain. Old woman’s brain on the filthy floor of his brain.
A nail gun fires into wooden scaffolding up the hill— the skeleton of a roof unfolding above the trees. Rat tat tat. Bunk bunk bunk. There is music,
“Look up, my dear, at the dark Constellations above.” “Dark stars under green sky.
Or else a room, and in the room five voices speaking at once and what delicious babble “sherbet” and “velvet” and “purple” and “fragrant” and “loud”—
