This page is the beginning of Chapter 9, “Birds of Negative Space.” Given the peculiar name of the chapter, Jen and Eric suspect it must contain several codes. Since the chapter has only one footnote (the usual location for codes), Jen insists, “It has to be somewhere in here.” Jen and Eric have become experts at cracking FXC’s codes by this point and enjoy the challenge.

Chapter 9 has a very odd title name.

Exchanges on this page tie in the theme of literature’s power. Eric also says he no longer cares about the colloquial use of the word “crazy” — something he corrected Jen on earlier in the book. He says the reason it changed is “because we’re doing this.” The work he’s been doing and literature he’s been reading have made him introspectively challenge the definition of crazy.

Similarly, Jen asks if this chapter was difficult for Eric to read over the winter, while he was in the hospital, connecting the words on the page to Eric’s reality. Eric says that it did the contrary; it made him feel like someone else (albeit fictional) was enduring the same thing he was.

In the story, S. wakes up in his Winer City apartment, confused and disoriented. Winter City was a place in one of Ostrero’s stories; his parents told him that’s where misbehaving children ended up.