⁽¹⁾One circumstance draws me to this old man: he is clearly out of his head and lives inside an apperceptive tangle whose knots Kant himself could not untie.

⁽²⁾ For you see, all those who are off (I won’t look for another definition) or, rather, out of their heads, evicted, so to speak from all twelve Kantian categories of reason, must naturally seek refuge in a thirteenth category, a sort of logical lean-to slouched against objective obligatory thinking.

⁽³⁾ Given that this thirteenth category of reason is where we entertain, in essence, all our figments and alogisms, the old gravedigger may be useful to my projected cycle of “fantastic” stories.

⁽⁴⁾ So then, I propose a smoke, and he reaches up a sweaty hand for a cigarette; I squat down, light to light—and the thirteenth category of reason throws wide for me its secret door.