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“There’s a well there. They threw a nun into it, once upon a time,” Poro told him. “There’s shade without trees and a church without a roof, too.”
Any of these facts were reason enough for N. to feel drawn to this mysterious ‘there.’
“I’ll go with you,” said Poro. “We can take a bike or a canoe. It’s much faster and easier by canoe, of course.”
N., however, had never paddled a canoe, and that reminded him of a song he had once heard to the strum of an out-of-tune guitar while sitting by a campfire:
Don’t sit in the same canoe
If you’re not a couple but just two.
“Well, this chap and I certainly don’t make a couple,” N. stated. “But it doesn’t matter, because nothing matters any more.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind cycling there,” he said lamely.
Poro wheeled over two bikes. One was En
