In time, that fear prevailed; it came between him and the page he was supposed
to write, the books he tried to read. Letters would crawl about on the page like
ants; faces, familiar faces, gradually blurred and faded, objects and people
slowly abandoned him. The voices he'd heard had been echoes; the faces he'd
seen had been masks; the fingers of his hands had been shadows‐vague and
insubstantial, true, yet also dear to him, and familiar.