NAZCA DESERT, PERU
“I t’s a complicated question with a complicated answer,” the Pillar replies. “In short, we have no idea what the Nazca desert was really meant to be. We just stare at it like primitive monkeys and try to make sense of it. Photographing it, analyzing, and puking theories. Just like Wonderland. It has secrets of its own.”
“So why are we here, then?”
“The Executioner told us the meeting took place in the Dodo, right?”
“Yes?” I grimace. “I don’t see the connection, other than that it’s the same name as the company that manufactured the hookah.”
“I am beginning to see the whole picture now. But before I tell you about the connection, I need to make sure you know all about the Dodo,” the Pillar says. “Not the one we’re looking for but the one in the Alice in Wonderland book.”
“What about him? I thought he was a silly lovable character, although I never understood the significance of his appearance.”
“The Dodo is Lewis Carroll’s alter ego,” the Pillar says. “You remember his real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, right?”
I nod. Of course I remember.
“So Lewis used to stutter a lot—I’ll get into why he did later. Usually, when he tried to say his name was Dodgson, he’d stutter and say Do-Do-Dodgson. Get it?”
“Do-Do,” I repeat the words. “The Dodo. That’s where it came from?”
“Exactly. Except that this is the kind of stuff historians will tell you,” the Pillar says. “I’m not saying he didn’t pick the name to reflect on his stuttering. But that wasn’t just it.”
“There is a bigger picture?”
“There is always a bigger picture if you open your eyes. The dodo is also an extinct bird. And it couldn’t fly. There are only records of it, and some claim they see it every now and then, but without concrete evidence.”
“Are you saying Lewis was pointing to the bird, too? Why? I don’t see a connection.”
“Of course you see a connection, an immense one, for that matter.” The Pillar points downward, right underneath the chopper.
I look, but it takes me a moment to see it.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s huge. Immense, like he said. But that’s the reason I couldn’t grasp what I was seeing at first.
But now I do. There is no question about it. One of Nazca Lines is of a Dodo. And I am staring at it right now.