Adam wrote:Benn looks with some timidness to make sure the others are nearby and ready (in some capacity) and steps inside the room.
He still keeps his hands clearly visible as he walks towards the plant person that indicated he should follow.
Walking into the fumy back room, Benn sees a half-dozen short plant men gathered around the fire and the large tub set above it on stone blocks.
A grotesque, spiny and hairless mockery of a dog scuttles along the rear wall. The weird quadrupedal creature stops to regard Benn with lambent green eyes, and then scurries along toward an alcove.
His guide takes him closer to the fire and the metal container.
The smell of hot garbage grows stronger with every step Benn takes.
The guide indicates the long, deep copper vessel. Benn's height allows him to peer in without getting too close; the simmering fluid mass within looks like some sort of disgusting stew made from the effluvia of Pont's storm drains. Benn spots rotten vegetables, fallen leaves, moldy cheese, bread crusts, broken barrel staves, a dead animal that might be a house-cat, pale lumpy stuff that could be flour turning into dough, and less identifiable things.
The creatures begin a slow, rhythmic dance, circling the tub while stamping their feet and tapping their chests.
Benn’s guide points at Benn’s feet and at his chest. It joins the dance.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
