So I was just now in the public garden. The root of the chestnut tree had penetrated deep into the ground, right under my bench. I couldn't remember it was a root. The words had vanished, and with them the meaning of things, their uses, the faint reference points that humans have drawn on their surfaces. I sat, slightly hunched over, with my head down, alone before this black, gnarled mass, completely rough and terrifying. And then I had this revelation. It took my breath away. Never before, until these last days, had I suspected what "existence" meant.