sweat-wet, and content in their weariness. Some hung dead from their harnesses, their 
legs swinging back and forth like the hanged. Others, children particularly, had ceased 
to obey their training, and had relaxed their positions, so that the form of the body was 
degenerating, beginning to seethe with the boils of rebellious cells.
    Yet it still walked, each step an incalculable effort of coordination and strength.
    Boom-The step that trod the cottage came sooner than they thought.
    Mick saw the leg raised; saw the faces of the people in the shin and ankle and 
foot-they were as big as he was now-all huge men chosen to take the full weight of this 
great creation.
    Many were dead. The bottom of the foot, he could see, was a jigsaw of crushed and 
bloody bodies, pressed to death under the weight of their fellow citizens.
    The foot descended with a roar.
    In a matter of seconds the cottage was reduced to splinters and dust.
    Popolac blotted the sky utterly. It was, for a moment, the whole world, heaven and 
earth, its presence filled the senses to overflowing. At this proximity one look could 
not encompass it, the eye had to range backwards and forwards over its mass to take it 
all in, and even then the mind refused to accept the whole truth.
    A whirling fragment of stone, flung off from the cottage as it collapsed, struck Judd 
full in the face. In his head he heard the killing stroke like a ball hitting a wall: a 
play-yard death. No pain: no remorse. Out like a light, a tiny, insignificant light; his 
death-cry lost in the pandemonium, his body hidden in the smoke and darkness. Mick 
neither saw nor heard Judd die.
    He was too busy staring at the foot as it settled for a moment in the ruins of the 
cottage, while the other leg mustered the will to move.
    Mick took his chance. Howling like a banshee, he ran towards the leg, longing to 
embrace the monster. He stumbled in the wreckage, and stood again, bloodied, to reach for 
the foot before it was lifted and he was left behind. There was a clamour of agonized 
breath as the message came to the foot that it must move; Mick saw the muscles of the 
shin bunch and marry as the leg began to lift. He made one last lunge at the limb as it 
began to leave the ground, snatching a harness or a rope, or human hair, or flesh 
itself-anything to catch this passing miracle and be part of it. Better to go with it 
wherever it was going, serve it in its purpose, whatever that might be; better to die 
with it than live without it.
    He caught the foot, and found a safe purchase on its ankle. Screaming his sheer 
ecstasy at his success he felt the great leg raised, and glanced down through the 
swirling dust to the spot where he had stood, already receding as the limb climbed.
    The earth was gone from beneath him. He was a hitchhiker with a god: the mere life he 
had left was nothing to him now, or ever. He would live with this thing, yes, he would 
live with it-seeing it and seeing it and eating it with his eyes until he died of sheer 
gluttony.
    He screamed and howled and swung on the ropes, drinking up his triumph. Below, far 
below, he glimpsed Judd's body, curled up pale on the dark ground, irretrievable. Love 
and life and sanity were gone, gone like the memory of his name, or his sex, or his 
ambition.
    It all meant nothing. Nothing at all.
    Boom-Boom-Popolac walked, the noise of its steps receding to the east. Popolac 
walked, the hum of its voice lost in the night.
    After a day, birds came, foxes came, flies, butterflies, wasps came. Judd moved, Judd 
shifted, Judd gave birth. In his belly maggots warmed themselves, in a vixen's den the 
good flesh of his thigh was fought over. After that, it was quick. The bones yellowing, 
the bones crumbling: soon, an empty space which he had once filled with breath and 
opinions.
    Darkness, light, darkness, light. He interrupted neither with his name.








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