“Words are a gift to the dead and a warning to the living”

S hears these words over and over as he listens to the voices that resonate from the open book that the bald man in the shops holds. In response to S’s strange behavior, Osfour grabs his arm and starts rambling to him about meaningless topics in an effort to keep the two from being noticed by anyone in the shop. Nonetheless, S turns back to the book stall, convinced that he must find a copy of The Archer’s Tales. Like many times before, S’s intuition powers his actions.

The scene becomes even more bizarre. The bald man starts tearing pages out of the novel, folding each page “carefully into quarters, and tucking it neatly into his coat pocket. Then another page: tear, fold, tuck.”

FXC’s footnote suggests that the repeated phrase S hears may be a reference to the Persian mystic Bayazid Bastami. Jen and Eric believe her footnote may be a code, or as Jen wonders, “what if VMS meant this as a warning. What if he was telling FXC to be careful?” to which Eric responds “What if they were sending messages to each other in the book?” Jen suggests that instead of using telegrams or letter that could be infiltrated, writing messages to each other through the book would combine “art & politics + feeling- showing everything he was made of.” If communications became restrained once SOT was published, communicating through code in SOT may have been the only way FXC and Straka could have spoken to each other with less risk of being found.