In this chapter, we are introduced to a number of characters, each of whom has a story to tell. The first is a young man named aditya, who has been saved from drowning by his friends. He tells us that he has been cut free from his friends, and that they have treated him like a child. He asks them to stop treating him as a child, and to help him destroy the totem he has made out of the earth. The second is a woman named cassandra, whom aditya calls a poison. The third is a poet named paulie, whom he calls the first to show him the truth. The poet asks him if he saw him peeling, and the poet replies that he does not know if he was looking out or looking in.