First, to establish my whereabouts. My surroundings remind me of my own house, except for the extraordinary furnishings, which must be the inventions of an eccentric. I rock back and forth on the mattress, a great bladder of water. Near the bed is a block made of some poreless beige material, on whose face burn the fiery numbers 8:37.

I throw aside the covers and stand, taller now. Philippe had said I might be taller. However, he did not warn me about this ringing in my ears, like a man’s faraway cries for help. I ignore the noise in my head and pad out of the bedroom, sinking into horrid yellow carpet.

Despite the bad taste in furnishing, I am beyond a doubt within my own house. Most of my collection has remained: Mine Enemy must have deemed them worth keeping, though not for their anthropological value. All intact: the bamboo weapons; the masks, especially the feathered one; my library – splendid. After all, Mine Enemy depised my taste in literature, hating the native culture as he did.

My journals have even survived the long sleep virtually untouched, behind the beveled glass doors of my favorite bookcase. All except the last journal, which I wrote in their language, a feat assisted by Philippe’s great-great-grandmother. I shall have to find it, for I know it must be nearby. the manuscripts appear to be so timeworn by daylight. I open the window. No familiar sound of drums, and the sacred fire is out. How dark the sunlight is, as if a brown cloud, a pestilence of locusts, were eating the sun.

And the word “smog” comes to me in the ringing of my ears. “ Smog”? I have never heard of it. Some nonsense syllable, a marriage of “smoke” and “fog”, perhaps. I must notate this in my journal when I find it.

My foot scatters a small, white wand, which according to the ringing voice in my ears, is a “ Q-Tip”. A “ Q-Tip”? I laugh at my receptivity to gibberish. Q-Tip, wherefore art thou, “Q-Tip” and not “B-Bat” or “Wiggly-Wand”? This absurd voice in my head my be silenced.

But it is a Q-Tip. The voice pleads for release: I know this house. I know it better than you do. It’s mine! Oh God, let me out of here... make him go away... His tinny voice weeping.

I must make note of all this remarkable nonsense. What is a Z-Tip doing in my house? I pick it up, cradle it pensively. It is tiny against my new hand. Maybe if I clean my new ears with it, this damnable inner voice will diminish. No such good fortune – in the dustbin it goes. Onward to find my last journal, my reliquary of secrets. The last book must contain a method of removing voices. After we used to remove hearts... Perhaps the book is in the parlor. I ignore the mirror in the hallway, knowing what I will see there.

Mine Enemy has appointed the parlor with ridiculous engines fashioned out of some unknown metal. There is a great foul box with a lens of dull green glass. Television, sobs the voice in my head. “A coffin with a window?” I suggest in reply. And there, atop the “television”, lies my journal.

The yellowed pages crumble as I read: “Mine Enemy cackles of Civilization – how he shall bring it, and stamp out the heaten disease I have abetted. ‘Gone native,’ he sneers at me, and should I not surrender my land for his plantation, threatens lawsuit or violence. Yes, I have indeed gone native, and the ceremony is tonight. Blood, powders and this manuscript shall combine to insure my immortality, and the first scion of Mine Enemy to touch this volume will find himself possessed by me.”

Once more Mine Enemy’s descendant cries out within my... his usurped body. I snatch up a small slab of metal, which I am mutely given to know is a “remote control,” and walk to the mirror. With the remote control I beat Mine Enemy’s image from the mirror, the shards falling into the horrid yellow carpet. Then, I rest, knowing that I need live in, but never behold, the body of Mine Enemy!