What craven sorcery lies herein? Yon figure looks all too similar to my own person, but he is thither and I am hither. There is space between us, and yet he and I make not dissimilar forms and positions— a duality, as it were. Alas, the eternal conundrum!

Perchance I may riddle this out by barking again and again ‘til he maketh answer. But halt! When I bark, so barks he. When he barks, so bark I. And on it goes, ‘twere ever thus and ‘twill ever be so. Enigma of enigmas!

What recourse is left but to lose myself completely? I shall howl and roll around, eyes spinning wildly in the fog of grave fear. I shall make a dervish of myself, wracked with the pains of a thinking man’s soul, tossed in the tumult of cruel Ignorance, she who summons me blithely to her bosom to rest in the folds of dark Unknowing. Sooth, ‘tis a vexing puzzle!

And now hear I the dreaded dirge of a vacuum cleaner! Be there no respite for this weary traveler?

Ah!