Since week 3, there has been a one chapter discrepancy between the audio and the page count schedules. I was surprised to read my friends commenting on Pompey’s killing last week, when my post ended at chapter 17, and the killing happens in chapter 18.
This week, week 4, the mistake carried over. I decided to leave the week 4 post as it is, to add chapter 23 here, and to update the schedule so next week, week 5, both following the audio and papercopy, will be again synchronized and on the same page/audio cut.
THE CONFESSION OF THE SCARLET DRAGON
Ch 23: Ralph visits the pack. He is back, like he never left. He sat through the lesson. He was staring at them. He is impolite somehow, but the way he is scrutinizing them. He is described as wild, untamed, he is asking Smoker how he is doing in his new environment. No news on Noble.
The door is locked. They don’t know who may be inside the dorm, with the door locked. Tabaqui is the narrator. Sphinx, Alexander, Larry, and Humpback are there. They speculate if it could be Black killing himself. But it is not Black, it was Blind with a girl.
Blind was in Larry’s bed, making out with Long or Gaby (?). Girls come into place now. Tabaqui is glad it wasn’t his bed. Larry hates it. Gaby is purple in places. They describe Gaby as an ugly girl, but with good legs. Vulture was the one who facilitated the encounter. Tabaqui asks Blind how it was, Blind doesn’t feel anything, he says. Sphinx seems upset about the whole thing. They are all picking on Blind and the pitiful state of his linens. Blind, as a leader, calls for a new law. Girls are permitted everywhere, they will visit each other, the way it was before, but the way it hasn’t been in a while, Tabaqui says.
Tabaqui is in the corridors when he sees a woman, her husband, a girl and a boy, brothers. He automatically likes the boy. His fingers and hands are different, long, not chubby. He hears the mother complain about her son, describe his behavior as impossible, criminal. Shark says that they are not a criminal record facility. The mother realizes she went too far complaining about the things that happen when he is around (electronics that break). Shark says they only accepts children with disabilities, to which the mother answers that he has been epileptic since he is ten.
Tabaqui talks about how money will buy his entrance in the house. And his file will say he has something different or that he doesn’t have, as it is for others. (Now this gives us a clue to who is in the house. Children with disabilities, and it could be highly problematic and dangerous children or youngsters whose parents have money and don’t want them with them.)
The new boy called a dragon is Alexander, he seems to be epileptic, but he also seems to have something special. Sphinx tells him that if he wants to be there he has to follow the rules and not do any of what the mother claimed he was doing at home. He seems to have always belonged to the house, as if he had materialized.
Alexander says he did never break the rules. The only thing he did was, as he describes it, to chase their bad dreams. He gets close to them, and they don’t wake up without yells or screams.
Alexander took Tabaqui outside, where he wanted to go while raining, but he found him soaked and wet. When he dries up, he asks the ones in his pack for a ladder. He wants to paint a dragon. He has a stone that looks like the eye of Noble, and he paints lilies -they represent Noble, and adds it to the dragon painting. The pack finds Tabaqui drawing the dragon, and they are all drunk, but not Tabaqui.
He goes back to the dorm, and all of them are sleeping their hangover. Tabaqui finds a clock that he smashes because it wakes him up. Sphinx noticed what Tabaqui had painted. There’s Humpback, Baby, hugging their Chinese red lamp, Alexander, and Sphinx.
UPDATED SCHEDULE
Week 1: BOOK 1 (to pp.77)
Intro (untitled)
The Backyard: Interlude
WEEK 1 AUDIO: cuts 1 – 7
Week 2 (pp. 94-146)
8. The House: Interlude
12. The House: Interlude
WEEK 2 AUDIO: cuts 8 – 12
Week 3 (pp. 147-217)
Sphinx: Visiting the Sepulcher
Smoker: Pompey’s Last Stand
WEEK 3 AUDIO: cuts 13 – 17 (I added cut 18, since that’s Smoker: Pompey’s Last Stand.
I made a mistake this week, paper copy people had one more section than the audio. It is cut 18, Smoker: Pompey’s Last Stand.)
Week 4: BOOK 2 (pp. 223-300)
Ralph: A Sideway’s Glance at Graffiti
Tabaqui: Day the Second
WEEK 4 AUDIO: cuts 19 – 22 (18 is repeated here too, in case you listened to it this week)
Week 4 Additional post, chapter 23. The Confession of the Scarlet Dragon
Week 5 (pp. 301-367)
The Confession of the Scarlet Dragon
Tabaqui: Day the Sixth
WEEK 5 AUDIO: cuts 24 – 31
Week 6 (pp. 368-445)
The House: Interlude
The Longest Night
WEEK 6 AUDIO: cuts 32 – 39
Week 7 (pp. 446-521)
Sphinx: The Longest Night
BOOK 3: The Abandoned Nests
Sphinx
Sphinx
WEEK 7: AUDIO: cuts 40- 41
WEEK EIGHT
Week 8 (pp. 522-604)
Red
Blind
WEEK 8 AUDIO: cuts 42 – 45
WEEK NINE
Week 9 (pp. 605-670)
Tabaqui
Smoker
WEEK 9 AUDIO: cuts 46 – 50
WEEK TEN
Week 10 (pp. 671-721)
Noble’s Tale
The Encounter
WEEK 10 AUDIO: cuts 51 – 63
Blow me away, Sylvia!! That photo IS WHAT I SEE as I read. Spot on.
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