. . .

He is laughing now. It is heaving through him, that darkness that grew and opened in his lungs and through his chest has turned to mirth like base metal refining into gold. He is laughing as if the humor was a physical substance in him, as if he were choking on it and spitting it out. He is sifting through the hats again but now it is to connect with them, now he is fishing in them, holding them up, lifting them high like a roguish child.

“From this,” he says. “From this! I will make a lens!”

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