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The Silent and the Damned
Robert Wilson
For Jane and José and Mick
Table of Contents
Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman!
SHAKESPEARE, The Winter’s Tale
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
JOHN ADAMS, second President of the United States
I am frightened? I have no physical reason for fear lying here in bed, next to Lucía, with my little Mario yipping in his sleep next door. But I am scared. My dreams have scared me, except they are not dreams any more. They are more alive than that. The dreams are of faces, just faces. I don’t think I know them and yet I have strange moments when I’m on the brink of recognizing them but it’s as if they don’t want that right now. That’s when I wake up because…I am not being accurate again. They are not exactly faces. They are not flesh. They are more ghostly than real but they do have features. They have colour, but it is not solid. They just miss being human. That’s it. They just miss being human. Is that a clue?
If I am frightened by these faces I should be reluctant to go to bed, but sometimes I look forward to sleep and I realize it’s because I want to know the answer. There’s a key somewhere in my mind, which will unlock the door and tell me: why these faces? Why not any others? What is it about them that my mind has marked out? I have begun to see them quite clearly now, during the day, when my conscious mind is adrift in some way. My subconscious
