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Episode
Three
His gift is the understanding of water. As he stands alone on the
rooftop in the pouring rain, he feels that the water is continuous
with his being. It is as though the thin membrane of skin which
keeps his mostly water body from flowing out has disappeared,
leaving no distinction between Tar-man and his environment, no empty
shell in which his soul must live a lonely eternity. And he can see
easily, if he so chooses, where the water goes, for he is there,
too. As it flows past parapet walls, through foundation cracks,
along joists, into plaster and drywall, around stone facings, wires,
pipes, curtains, furniture, and glass, he feels the elements of his
body break into a million tiny drops and follow. And across the
city, as the rain falls on endless numbers of people huddled in
doorways, smoking cigarettes, running through streets, catching
taxis, or in that one in a hundred case just standing and communing,
face toward the sky, he experiences virtually the only real human
contact he is ever able to know, the contact of water on
water-filled flesh only a heartbeat from the contact of two bodies
with one another. As he experiences the rain, so he experiences his
life in the world.
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