I passed through Zones One to Five with all my inputs held to a minimum. I have visited them at various times, and they are lively and for the most part agreeable places, since their inhabitants are those who have worked their way out of and well past the Shikastan drag and pull, and are out of the reach of the miasmas of Zone Six. But they are not my concern now; and traversing them I experienced no more than rapid flickers of forms, sensations, changes from heat to cold, exhilaration. Soon I knew I was close to the environs of Zone Six by what I felt, and without being told, I could have said, Ah, yes, Shikasta, there you are again - and with an inward sigh, a summoning of forces.
A twilight of grief, mists of hungry longing, a sucking drag of all the emotions - and I had to force each step, and it was as if my ankles were being held by hands I could not see, as if I walked weighted by beings I could not see. Out of the mists I came at last and there, where last time I was here I had seen grasslands, streams, grazing beasts, now was only a vast, dry plain. Two flat black stones marked the Eastern Gate, and assembled there were throngs of poor souls yearning out and away from Shikasta, which lay behind them on the other side of the dusty plains of Zone Six. Feeling me there, for they could not then see me, they came jostling forward like blind people, their faces turning and searching, and they groaned, a deep yearning groan, and as I still did not show myself, they began a keening chant, or hymn, which I remembered hearing in Zone Six all those thousands of years before.