I was spinning in circles, unable to eat, unable to sleep even, since Clem’s disappearance. Once the sadness had worn off, anger took its place, followed by a seemingly depthless depression and finally hysterical paranoia combined with a desperate need to sort this all out. How dare he just leave like that when everything was just beginning to make sense? How dare he bail out on me? I shoved my head through the hole and into Rose’s apartment, grabbed the telephone from her desk and pulled it back into my room and sat in the middle of the floor. I took a deep breath and dialled Clem’s number, my finger shaking at the thought of dialling into some kind of nothingness, wherever he was. It was making me sweat. I had visions of cables disappearing through dusty holes behind walls, down inside toilet bowls, down throats, into bleeding wounds, into ... God alone knows where. I shook my head, shooing away these ghastly scenes.
            I dialled, it rang. Shockingly, he answered after three rings, the unlikely sound of his voice booming from the receiver forced me to pull it away from my ear and stare at it with scepticism.
            The conversation went something, but not exactly, like this:
            I began by shouting, “Clem, you moron! Where are you? What’s going on?”
            “What!?” he yelled back. There was a lot of background noise, people talking, shouting, music. “Who’s that?”
            “Who’s tha ... it’s me! Henri! Henri Merle! Now listen, tell me where you are and I will come and get you. It sounds like you are in a deal of trouble.”
            “What? Hold on a minute, I can’t hear you. Maurice?” he yelled, before speaking to someone else in the background for what felt like an age. Eventually the music dropped and his voice came back again, talking at a more normal volume, “Ok, right-o. Who’s that?”
            “Clem it’s me, Henri. I miss you.”
            “Henri?”
            “Yes! I have so many things I want to talk to you about Clem, things that are happening, things we never got around to saying, I still really, really need your help. I think I am beginning to spin out of control Clem, I am dying and confused and I don’t know what is real anymore. I don’t know if I am writing things that happen or if I am writing things that happened or even if perhaps these are my own ideas after all. I have some conclusions that I want to share with you. I’ve made notes. If you ...” I stopped as he interrupted.
            “Wait. Henri who?” he asked just as the music went back to its original volume and someone began singing along, revoltingly out of tune. “Hello?” he shouted.
            “Clem!” I yelled.
            “I’m hanging up now,” he screamed, “can’t hear a damn thing in here.” Crack! Silence.