We start with a napkin. It's number 855 in the 1000-pack, and it passes over the border in to the backloading dispenser of a highway rest-stop eatery. It's a busy day, punctuated by several chocolate milk disasters which number 855 is fortunate to avoid. It is plucked by long yellow fingers much later on, cradled in a palm of deep valleys and endless fireside stories. No napkin has ever been treated so sensuously.

The long fingers are quick but the rest of the body is slow. Our careful diner moves unremarkably to a window bench. He sits down underneath kitchy old advertisements for Coca-Cola and Listerine. He doens't appear ammused.

Number 855 is set down on the counter and flutters nervously in the breeze of the heating duct. The long-fingered man eases in to his chair as if he was trying not to wake a sleeping child with creaky wood. Around him a radius of calm is just wide enough to be noticeable - the next table over is bearing sherbet slurpees and the rubble of a family lunch.

He breathes out air and tips back his mug of tea. He takes such a long drink that the steam from the tea condenses on his forehead in tiny droplets. He doesn't wip his face with the napkin; he stretches out one foot and a corner of his mouth rises in a small smile.

He takes a pen out of his pocket and uncaps it, tests it on the paper placemat. He holds it still for a minute more, and then he reaches for the napkin, draws it close, and begins to write.

It has come to the attention of me, Daniel Roach, anachronist and lover of evils, that you can escape. You can escape your sorrows and your sins. It is a complex matter, and not to be undetaken by novices, but I can teach you. This is the end of the napkin and the end of your world.