|
Wherever the "Thoughtyou'dgetheresooner" thing was, that's a reference to the dolphin hotel, the sheep man was saying he thought the main character would return sooner...
and this:
------------------
We faced each other across a small table, talking. The table was very old, round, set with one candle in the middle. The candle had been stuck directly onto a saucer. And that was the entire inventory of furnish*ings in the room. There weren't any chairs. We sat on piles of books.
It was the Sheep Man's room.
Narrow and cramped. The walls and ceiling had the feel*ing of the old Dolphin Hotel, but it wasn't the old hotel either. At the far end of the room was a window, boarded up from inside. Boarded up a long time ago, if the rusty nails and gray dust in the cracks of the boards were any indica*tion. The room was a rectangular box. No lights. No closet. No bath. No bed. He must've slept on the floor, wrapped in his sheep costume.
There was barely enough room to walk. The floor was lit*tered with yellowing old books and newspapers and scrap-books filled with clippings. Some were worm-eaten, falling apart at their bindings. All, from what I could tell, having to do with the history of sheep in Hokkaido. All, probably, from the archive at the old Dolphin Hotel. The sheep refer*ence room, which the owner's father, the Sheep Professor, pretty much lived in. What ever became of him?
The Sheep Man looked at me across the flickering candle
flame. Behind him, his disproportionately enormous shadow played over a grimy wall...
------------
We saw this in the earlier lights...Hide Your Sorrows' picture is a candle (i remember some people leaning towards it being a lighthouse), and it also contains the text bits at the bottom of the "shovel that good snow" page...I don't know if it's all old news but I figured maybe there was reference somewhere...
------------
«Yes, I came back,» I said. «I couldn't get this place out of my mind. I tried to forget things, but then something else would pop up. So it didn't matter whether I liked it or not, I sort of knew I belonged here. I didn't really know what that meant either, but I knew it anyway. In my dreams about this place, I was . . . part of everything. Someone was crying for me here. Someone wanted me. That's why I came back. What is this place anyway?»
The Sheep Man looked me easy in the face and shook his head. «'Fraidwedon'tknowmuch. It'srealbig, it'srealdark. All-weknow'sthisroom. Beyondhere, wedon'tknow. Butanyway, you'rehere, somust'vebeentime. Timeyoufoundyourwayhere. Wayweseeit, atleast. ...» The Sheep Man paused to rumi*nate. «Maybesomebody'scryingforyou, throughthisplace. Somebodywhoknewyou, knewyou'dbeheadinghereanyway. Likeabird, comingbacktothenest. . . . Butlet'sussayitdifferent. Ifyouweren'tcomingbackhere, thisplacewouldn'texist.»
------------
Theres that bird-nest riddle thing from way-back-when.
He also says that they (the sheep man(s)...he's talking plural) connect things, reconnect things...was there like a specific quote or reference to reconnecting things? I cant remember...
When the sheepman says stayhere, you'llfreeze, etc., he's talking about multiple realities, and that they chose this one, being that they "don'tlikewar", that the main character still has warmth, and that it's too cold here...
I dunno, see what you can do with it...If you can do anything with it.
|