Page 11, Paragraphs 7-9; Page 12, Paragraph 1

Back to work.

Page 11, Paragraph 7:

Through many winters now, my people say, there's been little food for us to forage, that times are hard for those of us who walk and that they're going to get harder yet. After each winter there are more settlers and fewer nomadic peoples, so that there aren't many of us now. For someone all alone like me, it's an empty belly - there's no helping it.

Paragraph 8:

Once I came upon settlers in my travels, with their pointed-top huts of hides on branches sitting high on a hill. There were less than 5 huts. I smell their fire and the meat they have cooking on it, which makes me hungry.

Paragraph 9 (ends on the top of page 12):

I walk up the hill, and a little way up I see a man on top of it, and he sees me with puke and blood on my face and shit on my legs. He says, "You look like a pig's ass. What do you want here?", and so forth. His way of speaking is strange, with many sayings I don't understand. Another man with a big belly comes to the top of the hill for a look at me. Below his belly he has a little penis, like a baby's.

Page 12, Paragraph 1 (first full paragraph):

Now I tell them that my mother is dead and that I've been cast out by my people. I say, "I just want a little something in my belly."

Page 11, Paragraphs 3 - 6; Note

Page 11, Paragraph 3:

I run one way around the bush and then the other so I can see where the grass is flattened and therefore which path I came here by. Now I see that it's rained so hard that the path I took has been obscured because all the grass is flattened. I run beneath the trees and smell nothing except grass. Now I run this way and that, by tree and briar, and yell for the foot, and yell for my mother. I run all around, down in the ditch, up the hill with moss thick on the stones, and here I fall in the dirt, and I don't know where I am.

Paragraph 4:

I don't see the foot anymore. Likewise, the red-berry bush is gone; I can't find it anymore. This is how I come out of where I was, and I walk for many days and nights, and the whole time I'm walking I don't know where they are.

Paragraph 5:

I walk on open grass and jump over a stream. I walk through trees, with leaves* all around my feet, and I find a circle of mushrooms growing on the grass - they're dark on the underside, which means they're the kind that are good to eat. Awhile goes by and I find nothing at all, and I walk on and still don't find anything; a couple of days pass this way.

Paragraph 6:

I walk to where the grass is so high I can't see above it, and I find a dead bird. I'm so hungry that I eat it, but it's filled with maggots. Now I throw up and shit down my legs, and another day and night passes, and I walk.

*An initial reading of "dry-up skins" would seem to indicate the narrator's talking about bark, but I'm pretty sure he actually means leaves. (You can leave (no pun intended) a comment if you want me to discuss my rationale for this.)

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Bad news: I work all day tomorrow, so I won't be posting at all.

Good news: I'm on vacation starting Sunday, so I should be able to post every day after that. :)

Page 10, Paragraphs 5 and 6; Page 11, Paragraphs 1 and 2; Notes

This passage is a good example of what Neil Gaiman refers to in the introduction as the narrator's "inability to tell dreams from reality".

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Page 10, Paragraph 5:

Now for a time no thoughts come, and then everything becomes strange. I am no longer in the briar cave. I'm beneath some trees, and all is dark except where the white-wood stands bright. I don't understand how it got dark so quickly or how I got here. I'm frightened as I look around and see a shape standing in between the trees. It's my mother. She moves lazily, putting one hand on a tree, and looks at me. [It is that good*] I walk closer to her, and I can now see her leg. It ends in a bloody string with nothing below her ankle. I look from the stump to Mother's face. She looks vexed, as if she's unhappy with me. "Where'd my foot go?", she says.

Paragraph 6:

At this, I scream so big and loud that it throws me up in the sky and out of the dark, and I fall back in the briar-cave, where it's light already. This happens instantly, and I don't understand how. I don't hear the rain as it's gone a ways off, and I stand up stooped over the [entry] hole; that's how I come out of the bush.

Page 11, Paragraph 1:

It's wet everywhere, and there are puddles all around on the ground. The water brings up the smell of the earth and the grass, and it's a good smell, strong and fresh.**

Paragraph 2:

I can't smell my shit. The rain has washed away my shit and I can't smell it. My shit where the tree is; where the foot is.

*I have no idea what this means in this context.

**I liked this so much in the original that I almost hated to change it: Wet rise up sniff of dirt and grass, and sniff of they is good, and strong, and is not old.