. . .

He holds up the hat. He turns it in his hands.

There is no slime from it. It is not dead. It is like dead, it is from the stuff of the dead, it is made from the ruins of dead hats, but it is not dead. It is warm and living in his hands.

Its presence caresses him with electric sensations, holy shivers, it is as if it speaks to him in some numinous and angelic tongue.

“I —” he says.

Then he closes his eyes. He lets the tears flow.

“I have made this,” he says.

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