Why don't you come out of the shadows? What do you really look like? You're afraid of something aren't you? What is it you're afraid of?

Beyond the figure in the shadows is the glass door. Chris is behind it, motioning me to open it. He's older now, but his face still has a pleading expression. "What do I do now? "he wants to know. "What do I do next? " He's waiting for my instructions.

It's time to act.

I study the figure in the shadows. It's not as omnipotent as it once seemed. "Who are you? " I ask.

No answer.

"By what right is that door closed?"

Still no answer. The figure is silent, but it is also cowering. It's afraid! Of me.

"There are worse things than hiding in the shadows. Is that it? Is that why you don't speak? "

It seems to be quivering, retreating, as though sensing what I am about to do.

I wait, and then move closer to it. Loathsome, dark, evil thing. Closer, looking not at it but at the glass door, so as not to warn it. I pause again, brace myself and then lunge!

My hands sink into something soft where its neck should be. It writhes, and I tighten the grip, as one holds a serpent. And now holding it tighter and tighter we'll get it into the light. Here it comes! NOW WE'LL SEE ITS FACE!

"Dad! "

"Dad! " I hear Chris's voice through the door?

Yes! The first time! "Dad! Dad! "

"Dad! Dad!" Chris tugs on my shirt. "Dad! Wake up! Dad!"

He's crying, sobbing now. "Stop, Dad! Wake up!"

"It's all right, Chris."

"Dad! Wake up!"

"I'm awake." I can just barely make out his face in the dawn light. We're in trees somewhere outside. There's a motorcycle here. I think we're in Oregon somewhere.

"I'm all right, it was just a nightmare."

He continues to cry and I sit quietly with him for a while. "It's all right," I say, but he doesn't stop. He's badly frightened.

So am I.

What were you dreaming about?"

"I was trying to see someone's face."

"You shouted you were going to kill me."

"No, not you."

"Who?"

"The person in the dream."

"Who was it?"

"I'm not sure."

Chris's crying stops, but he continues to shake from the cold. "Did you see the face?"

"Yes."

"What did it look like?"

"It was my own face, Chris, that's when I shouted. -- It was just a bad dream." I tell him he's shivering and should get back into the sleeping bag.

He does this. "It's so cold," he says.

"Yes." By the dawn light I can see the vapor from our breaths. Then he crawls under the cover of the sleeping bag and I can see only my own.

I don't sleep.

The dreamer isn't me at all.

It's Phædrus.

He's waking up.

A mind divided against itself -- me -- I'm the evil figure in the shadows. I'm the loathsome one. --

I always knew he would come back. --

It's a matter now of preparing for it. --

The sky under the trees looks so grey and hopeless.