Seven miles later, Francis came to the outskirts of ModosharromoG.
First a brief history of this illustrious town:
A city after Nero's own heart, built brick by brick, stone by stone, street by street,
according to a large blueprint left in care of his horse, excavated by a monastery
of depraved monks in the middle-aged ages...a rather vast city made of canals and palazzos,
most of it underground, tunneled through sandstone....a place where fiddleheads abounded, as well as every other kind of creature... and all kinds of sofas. Sofas to lie down, to fornicate, fifthicate, divide and embellish, to puncture, mutilate..couches for holding a pin up in front of you, couches that wriggled and wriggled and wriggled...in spite of this, the population was dwindling.
Here he saw four fiddleheads playing boules on the dunes. He had never seen any fiddleheads other than his mother and father....and this sudden stripping away of uniqueness pleased him. Perhaps his actual quest was that of becoming ordinary, of learning how to fit in.
"Who are you?" they asked, tightening their heads.
"Francis."
They said,"You smell different," and went back to playing boules. Immediately one of them started sinking into the sand, shrieked, and dissolved completely. He was swallowed up by the sand before anyone could even move towards him.
"It happens here quite often," said one fiddlehead. "Because of the quicksand."
"Well," said Francis,"why don't you play somewhere else?"
"Play somewhere else?" one tittered. "Skirting fatality is our sole pleasure in life."
They turned their backs on him and continued playing until another one shrieked and dissolved into the quicksand.
So Francis bid them goodbye and went towards the heart of the city.
But he too fell into quicksand. He could not get out. The hole around him got deeper..until he
realized that Modomsharramog was something you fell into, that it simply happened. And you were there.