Friday, July the 30th, 2004
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Looking through my diaries, I am reminded that on the very same day as Dobson's disastrous attempt at trepanation, I set off a-roaming. I left my ruined chalet at about the same time as Dobson caught his train. On the first part of the journey—mine, not Dobson's—I was looking at all the life. There were plants and birds and rocks and things, things I was unable to identify, despite having a handy illustrated encyclopaedia in my knapsack. There was sand and hills and rings, abandoned engagement rings, tossed aside in what one must assume were fits of pique. It puzzled me that no one had returned to reclaim them. On I went. Dobson's train was pulling in to Mustard Parva station when the solitude of my journey was at last broken. The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz, and the second thing was a distressed monitor lizard. I fed the fly to the lizard, had a snack myself, and pressed on. Eventually I came to a clump of pugton trees, and I examined them very carefully, and the sand, and the sky with no clouds. The heat was hot and the ground was dry but the air was full of sound. I could have sworn I heard a Bavarian accordion band, but it must have been my imagination. I've been through the desert on a horse with no name. It felt good to be out of the rain. In the desert you can remember your name, 'cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain. Even so, I wish now that I had been with Dobson on his train.