“He suspects, though, that even if he’d witnessed the ship being sucked into the deep, even if he’d counted the bodies of twenty men and one monkey strewn over the water, he’d still be stealing anguished glances over his shoulder for the rest of his life.”

As S. slowly begins to come back to his senses he asks himself what happened to the ship after his escape. However, he realizes that it doesn’t matter because even if he had seen the ship get sucked into the sea “he’d still be stealing anguished glances over his shoulder for the rest of his life.” Ultimately, though, he’s just glad that he’s finally free and “[would] be damned if [he allowed] those ghouls to find him ever again.”

S.’s thoughts do well to give more insight on the ship and its crew. If anything, he seems to imply that it was a haunting experience–one that he will never truly be free from. In other words, the ship has become a part of S., but the question remains: for better or for worse?

Most of Jen and Eric’s comments here center around FXC’s footnote, which attempts to liken S.’s escape to the protagonist’s escape in The Square. However, the footnote is riddled with fallacies, and Eric and Jen immediately assume that it could be a clue, although they never end up reaching a substantial conclusion. In one of Eric’s pencil notes he makes a remark that Jen finds interesting.

Franzl + S. act very differently @ protests. VMS recycling plotlines, using in diff. ways. So: SOT as a look back at his books, showing how the stories might’ve been written differently.

And maybe how his life might’ve gone differently?

At first Eric replies skeptically to her comment, but eventually changes his mind and writes:

You know, that’s making sense to me now. (Maybe I’m spending too much time with you.)

You’re not spending time with me.

Soon – I swear. Can’t slow down now.

How is meeting me going to slow you down? I’m helping you. If you can’t see that, I should just walk away.

I just need time, that’s all.

What’s really stopping Eric from meeting Jen? Is it an issue of trust? Would it be risky for him to be seen with her? Or risky for her to be seen with him? It’s clear that Eric is interested in meeting Jen at some point, but there seems to be something preventing him from doing so at the time.