Just wanted to say marsch’s certainty of the cat and the boy being together is suggested to be almost telepathic because it is via the shadow child field of the cat which has caught both victor and marsch in its web, thus the 00—00 page break when the cat shows up to show their new gestalt link.
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Shadow children as an microscopic infection is a bit of leap for me because it invalidates everything which VRT tells us about them in A Story. And I can't find any clue regarding why would he lie to us, Because he is going to rot in jail perpetually for his whole life, if take a pessimistic view of the ending.
For me either the shadow children are first human colonizers, or they are first abos who shape shifted into humans and then got addicted to drug, the subsequent colonization made the abos take perfect human form.
I also think VRT did not find anyone in the back of the beyond for three years, and the dreams he has regarding the cat flying, and a women with hair over looking him can be considered as part of hallucinogenic experiences which he has after consuming the mushrooms(Brandon's theory).
Because why indeed does he return to human civilization after three years? Because from the start of the novella he is literally ideal worshiping the free people in the form of his mother, and he despises the human part of him, which has always brought him suffering, he spends three years in the back of beyond, surviving in his primal form, without any clothes and on the available nature, due to which also he may have those hallucinogenic dreams.
If indeed did he manage to find any abos, why does he come back to human civilization assuming the identity of Marsch?
My alternative reading is when Marsch took the cat from VRT, and it bite him, he basically broke the neck of the cat, because Marsch is shown at the edge, in his last entry of log book, and anything biting him would have triggered an instantaneous reaction from him. and it was the cat infection, combined with the mauling he received at the hands of Tire tiger which finally killed him.
The shadow children are actually parasites that rise up on the winds, a gestalt infection that lives in the mouth of the host animals. Its bite is the method of infection. Here is the dream:
For a moment I thought I saw my cat flying like a shadow in the dark, and I wondered if she were really dead, though I broke her neck. The day before I found the burial cave for him, she brought me a little animal and laid it at my feet. I told her that she was a good cat and could eat it herself, but she only said, “My master, the Marquis of Carabas, sends you greetings.” And disappeared again. The little animal had a pointed snout and round ears, but its teeth were the even, biting teeth of a human being, and it smiled in its agony. (247) This is the shadow children as described in the middle novella, and the cat "flying like a shadow" (shadow children, which float on the vapors in the back of beyond) introduces a biting metaphorical shadow child to Marsch - via bite, as the bite which switches Eastwind and Sandwalker - they are a microscopic infection and their host animals proliferate throughout port mimizon. For more on this, see the upcoming episode with Glenn and Brandon or https://youtu.be/esAjkChAy7M, https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&v=esAjkChAy7M&redir_token=_7vDPpoOVMb7wvoKBfY65Nq17kR8MTU1NjAzMjE5MUAxNTU1OTQ1Nzkx&a