The Node [antikvár]

It remains only to be told how our hero grew up and died. Let it also be told about his physical person, how he drifted from one career to another and this account can quickly be brought to a close. Of his ancestors and other things, little need be said. To begin, he was a tall man and except for one particular feature, was reasonably average in a great many ways. His legs hung down on both sides, acuminating in two feet of no particular distinction. His arms were perhaps thinner than he would have wanted, as also his neck, ankles, and his reengineered dog, a honey-colored creature purchased at great expense from a nearby biogenetical laboratory (now shut down). But primarily it was our hero's face (because it was pale and broad and box-shaped) that drew the little bit of attention that sometimes came his way. In fact, it was even worse than that, resembling, as it did, that of a squid, or the flywheel of an old-time escrubilator, those with the several holes that had been designed almost as of set purpose to simulate a nose and shrunken mouth. Seen in full sun, it looked, that face, like a slate that had been wiped clean and then redrawn in a faint blue chalk that had mostly peeled away by now. Worse still was his profile, which had a saurian aspect centered upon a bright red tongue that was forever darting in and out. And then, too,