The Soul Swallower
A creature known as Mahakali is a swallower of souls. His back is a tapestry of tattooed faces of petrified souls unable to leave the domain of the In Between. Imagery is used to describe the sound produced when all these faces begin speaking at once: “At first the static sounds like ants with miniature microphones crawling over a carcass, then like pebbles in plastic boxes shaken by horrid children. Then, like Portuguese, Dutch and Sinhalese spoken at the same time, and then it is words voiced at different speeds, tongues tripping over each other, screams masked by sighs, surrenders turning into curses.” The auditory imagery is designed to initially convey the cacophony of so many different voices speaking simultaneously. Specific details like “carcass” and “horrid children” along with screaming and cursing gives this dissonance a sinister emotional aspect.
Chance
The novel commences with an epigraph asserting that there are only two gods worthy of being worshipped. One of them is Chance. This assertion sets the stage for a recurrence of imagery throughout the narrative: “The chances of finding a pearl in an oyster are 1 in 12,000. The chances of being hit by lightning are 1 in 700,000…the odds that the pilot is drunk is one in 117…the chances of violence ending violence are one in nothing, one in nada, one in squat.” This obsession with statistical odds is applied to everything from being born with extra toes to winning poker hands to the potential for an afterhours nightclub ever opening in Colombo. Ultimately, it serves as imagery that foreshadows the conflict and climax of the book in which the protagonist decides to test the limits of overwhelming odds.
Free Will
This is a story about ghosts and ghouls with a twist. Rather than obeying all conventional rules about haunting, the unseen spectral creatures here are capable of silently and invisibly directing the actions of human beings: “Humans believe they make their own thoughts and possess their own will. This is yet another placebo that we swallow after birth. Thoughts are whispers that come from without as well as within. They can no more be controlled than the wind. Whispers will blow across your mind at all times and you will succumb to more of them than you think.” The imagery illustrates the manner in which ghosts completely undermine assertions of free will.
The Cardboard Box
At the center of the story is a cardboard box. Inside that box is a shoebox. Inside that shoebox are five envelopes. Inside those envelopes are photographs. The photographs could potentially “shake the world." One would have to be very careful about choosing where to hide those photographs: “There are letters and aerogrammes, bearing your name and this address. Scattered love notes that could be used for blackmail were you so inclined, old water bills, mostly paid; and a letter from your father. There are also records–Jesus Christ Superstar, ABBA, Jim Reeves, Elvis’s Harum Scarum, Queen’s Flash Gordon soundtrack–none of them listened to very much and all of them scattered on the red terrazzo.” The purpose is to misdirect whoever might know the photos exist somewhere from assuming they could possibly be stored amongst all this stuff. The albums are either not hard at all to find elsewhere or are of little interest. The water bills are purposely placed junk meant to indicate that nothing else of great worth is there. The love notes are a red herring designed to engender the suspicion that they are the real hidden treasure to be found in the box.
