So I'm just really jumping around.
Here's another Chen section.
He ends up-- well, after he goes through the Mayan underworld,
has some very intensely unpleasant experiences there,
he ends up delivering a baby in ancient Egypt
in an unfinished pyramid.
[LAUGHTER]
So there's some references in the section to an oculus.
That's the top of the unfinished pyramid, where
you can see up to the sky.
And there's a boat in the pyramid
because ancient-- in Egyptian funeral rites,
they oftentimes put a solar boat,
a small scale model of a boat that would take you to the sun.
What else?
Oh, there's some translator notes that start to pop up.
So I'll just mark them.
And I go like this.
"31."
"Dawn with her frosted pink fingernails
raked away night's remains.
Migrating egrets traverse the brightening oculus.
Here and there, Chen could make out
pointillist colonies of wildflowers sprinkled around
the verdant edge.
Cradling the baby in his arms-- in her arms,
Neph climbed onto the solar boat."
Neph is the mother.
"She propped herself against the curved prow
and patiently wrangled the child, fussing at her breast.
The infant's flailing hand grasped a miniature ore
and began to row.
'Oh, Sudi,' cooed the girl, 'be good.'
They looked like a surrealist parade float,
or a lost scene from Gulliver's Travels,
or a girl nursing her baby on a scale model funeral vessel.
But somehow, everything fell into proportion.
Only the cataract of blood trickling over the ship's
gunnel spoiled the illusion.
'What's that?' Chen cried out.
Neph frowned thoughtfully at her lap.
'I don't know,' she said, beginning to shiver.
'I thought it was over.'
The umbilicus tethering her to the baby pulsed weakly
then stopped.
Chen reached up and tugged at the slippery cord
as if it were a bit of loose rigging.
'Ouch,' Chen screeched--
Neph screeched.
'Don't do that.'
Never, under any circumstances whatsoever, pull the cord.
Trans.
[LAUGHTER]
A scarlet puddle had formed on the masonry around Chen's feet.
Neph doubled over, clutching the baby to her chest.
Pulling himself up on tiptoe, Chen
peered over the edge of the deck and watched a veinous lump
spill out from the girl like a cadaver decomposition
island [INAUDIBLE] postscript in gynecological space time.
'Twins?' He squeaked."
He's had some bad experiences with twins.
"'Ugh,' Neph said, breathless, 'It's the after birth.
It's nothing.
It's over, Chang.
Christ.' Chen scooped up the bloody remainder in one hand.
With the other, he fumbled for the travel-sized stainless
steel scissors in his trousers.
Sunrise flooded the unfinished pyramid.
For a heartbeat, Chen felt like a deathless God
upholding the balance.
'May I?' He asked, bowing deeply.
A passing dragonfly landed on the ornamental rudder.
'Thanks,' Neph said, reaching for the scissors.
'I think I'll take it from here.'"