[hider=Thoughts.]Everything stops before I can even perceive what happens next - a stream of banner-color lights I know as neon, stop-start, stop-start, every second a new thing that I have to make room in my mind for.  I am shown a story that has no relation to me and I no relation to it - what is a Latino?  How can it slow down time?  I know the answer to both of these and I don't really care, I want answers - concise.  Real.  The fact that the Gods conspired to waste 240 minutes of my life and an infinitesimal fraction of it at the same time burns.  Rash.  I have a rash on my skull now.  Scabaceous and oozing with a thick pus that comes out runny and drips down the side of my head.  It's making the Gods itch too.

A week passes.  Two weeks pass.  10 seconds pass.

Stop recommending things to view.  It isn't a joy to anyone.  You're going to forget that I ever existed in a year.[/hider]

I am still standing in front of the two grey thought-shapes in front of me.  I called them Reinforced Doormen once.  Their existence comes in before the rest of the people around me.  [color=teal]"Oh,"[/color] I mutter, no one in particular listening.  Then, I briefly shuffle.  All I can do is that; this God-given raiment tilts as a jug with a narrow base.  Umara, young-mask, too serenely shaped to be among us strangers.  [color=teal]"I am not a sad.  Stop sniffing my rags, all of you, if the mere thought makes you crumple down like bone underneath a wheel."[/color]

There are two words up there that seem to invoke a strange tittering in the sky.  I look up a little again and let the rain soak and the image of the guards drip down into my eyes as well..

[hider=Thoughts continue.]I'm convinced that I will end up causing a terrible problem here, but I have God at my side.  He is drooling and He is holding a heavy metal object in His hands, and I know it will technically hurt to be struck with.  I can't continue to exist without it.  There is a plan in store for me.  No consensus is reached or attempted to be reached.[/hider]

I hold up my hands to them.  Gnarled, tree-branch hands.  I forget which trees are the white ones, but like that.

And then, I speak.  I speak as they do.

[color=teal]"All I have to do is speak that I am speaking as they speak, and then I speak,"[/color] I remind the others.  They're going to learn about how to do this one way or the other, so best to remind them.

[color=teal]"(I don't have anything.  I am a beggar and a forager,)"[/color] I say in perfect Whatever-The-Ogres-Speak.  Look!  Stare directly at it, what I said, as it hangs in the air: the ( and the ), the binding circle of clarification!  With it, the world opens up.  [color=teal]"(I've gotten the robes on my back and the bindings on my feet.  The one who says he's misplaced his purse is obviously lying, so let me pass in poverty while you go bother the rich character.)"[/color]

You know what a parenthesis is, right, Gods?