Monday, August 06, 2007

"In her dream, Hunter is in the undercity beneath Bangkok. It is partly a maze, and partly a forest, for the wilderness of Thailand has retreated deep beneath the ground, under the airport and the hotels and the streets. The world smells of spice and dried mango, and it also smells, not unpleasantly, of sex.

Upon her arrival, it comes through the underbrush, a fury of brown and of white, undulating gently, like a wet-furred snake. The creature is extinct in the world above. As it passes her, it freezes, and then it leaps at her, nothing but hate and sharp teeth.

She remembers, then, in her dream, that this had happened before, and that when it had happened, that time in the past, she had pushed the leather arm-shield into its mouth and crushed its skull with the leaden throwing stick taking care not to damage the pelt.

But now, in her dream, that is not happening, Instead, the weasel is reaching out a forepaw toward her, and she is dropping her throwing stick and taking its paw. And then and there, in the undercity beneath Bangkok, they are dancing together, in one intricate unending dance: tail and legs and arms and fingers and eyes and hair all tumbling and twisting powerfully and strangely into the underneath and out across forever."

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman