And then, before further Explanation could explain away the truth, he seized at another diving arrow and saw it whole, though it vanished the same instant:
'I am the whole room. I am my surroundings!'
Some new point of view had leaped into him, something almost daemonic that suggested limitless confidence in his power to overcome all obstacles, because they were part of his own being.
Objects, things, details—during that amazing second at least—no longer seemed separate, alone, apart from one another. They were not anywhere cut off. Seen thus, a chair was a cupboard, a table was a basin, he was the ceiling, bed, and carpet. Equally, a cat was a peacock, a mouse was an elephant.
He said these words to himself in an astonished whisper, and in doing so he understood something he didn't understand. The sentence waited for the verb, the meaning, and it suddenly came down pop—at the end. Reason helped a little there, for he had named and described, and therefore seen what before he had only felt. Perhaps further understanding would follow. The verb would come. He would get up and try. He would do something—act—act out his mood. Action seemed suddenly a new kind of language, a three-dimensional language, an ever-moving language in which objects took on character and played parts for the sake of expression. A language of action! You are whatever you do. . . .!
And as this arrow shot its message past him it seemed that certain objects in the room were about to jump at him. They did not actually move, but they were just about to move—ready and alert. The instant he slept they would rise and fly together again. It was his point of view, his mind in him, that made them appear separate. Each object was clothed in its own story of information, as it were. Objects were telling him something. They were demonstrating an idea.
'I am not alone, although I'm only one,' he said aloud. 'In arithmetic one is not more lonely than seven.' But, again, he didn't understand quite why he said it, while yet he understood perfectly at the same time. 'I'm not quite myself at any rate,' he added, and it was true. Perhaps he was a trifle frightened, still hovering on the nightmare edge of sleep. For all this happened in a single instant when he turned the light up. With sight his breath came more easily at once, his heart beat steadily again.
Yet there was certainly a sense of rhythm in the room, though lessening rapidly. He must hurry. The cage was closing round him again. He heard the flying voices farther and farther in the distance, but still sweet with a rhythmical new music.
'Use the mood of the moment, but first understand why it is the mood of the moment!'
'Use the material you have at once! Don't wait for something different!'