The land across the sea then entered my mind, and its degenerate inhabitants, but that was across a wide channel that would be hard to cross even if I had infinite time, freedom, and materials to make a boat which would withstand the waves, and I had none of the three. What little hope I had, then, was out of reach, lost to me like the golden days of the past. It was then that I was overcome by despondency, the hopelessness of my situation weighing my spirits down. It is a peculiar trait of mine that in times of distress and in situations that seem to have no possible favorable outcome I act rashly and without reason. You will remember how I leaned forward and peered into the dark hole when I was stranded on the tiny island in the sea, and how I struck the tree with a limb on the shores of Lake Umquam Renatusum. Likewise, I again did something which would seem illogical and vain: in my frustration, I pushed the table that I happened to be standing against with as much force as I could muster. It slid softly along the carpeting before coming to a halt a few inches from the glass wall. It made no noise or jarring of the floor, but the sudden shifting of weight in the room caused the tower to sway once more, as it had when I had run up the stairs to the couch. And, as had happened on the previous occasions, the result of my senseless actions was good, as if guided by some external force, for an idea came suddenly to my mind that would not have been there otherwise, an idea that was outlandish and far-fetched, but was at the time my only hope. I lost no time on preparing my efforts, for there was none to be lost, and set out immediately to remove the carpeting from the floor. Upon examination I found that it was not attached to the ground at all, but only fastened into a wooden frame at the walls that held it tightly in place. It stretched in a circular fashion around the whole of the room and into the center until it came to the stairs that led downward, so that once removed it formed a circle about thirty feet in diameter with a three foot circular hole in its center. In case I haven't mentioned the type of the carpet yet, which I must confess that I cannot remember, I will do so here: it was not a traditional carpet, that form being apparently lost after the great wars, instead it was a silky sheet-like carpet, no more than a quarter inch thick, and in fact greatly resembling the sail of an old clipper ship, the painting on the glass that I saw earlier probably attesting to the fact that it had been designed with that appearance in mind. Like its prototype, the sail, it caught a lot of wind and acted in the same general manner.