1 result for (book:sdpc AND heading:"part three chapter 18" AND stemmed:mask)
[... 63 paragraphs ...]
Here I find about twelve people in the water, in skin-diving outfits. They hand me some equipment, and there is a good deal of conversation about how difficult it is to get the suits on. When everyone is ready, they give me a mask. I’ve already put my suit on. We swim down the lake aways. We come to a particular cottage, find a space to swim through and find ourselves in an apartment that is completely underwater. During this time, I’m acutely aware of the noise of the diving equipment and the very cold water.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
I write: ‘Do you breathe water somehow?’ She answers, ‘Yes. They outlawed those suits a number of years ago, so we can’t get to …’ She stops suddenly and I get the idea that once again I’m in some kind of a warp of a probable dimension of submarine people, or people who live in a water-based atmosphere. My mask becomes uncomfortable and begins to fill with some water.
The others become frantic to get out too. We kick to the wall and push through up the fireplace, one by one, to surface. The instant I yank off my mask, I jolt awake. For some time I am disoriented. I find myself sitting on the dock and do not recall walking there. I’m in my physical body now, yet somehow the physical world around me is incomplete with enormous pieces missing. Finally, my head clears; it had been filled with a peculiar whine. It was as though the world outside of the immediate focus of my eyes was only half-formed; the rest, grayish and swirling.
[... 40 paragraphs ...]