Anton‘s Bark - Three

It is confirmed by the real Otto that as the muse Urania works
her magic on him, Anton loses control of his novel. Her
inspirations provoke Anton’s imagination in such a way as to make
it impossible for him to write anything that makes sense; and
because whatever he imagines comes true, the writer’s confusion
spirals further out of control. He believes the only way forward
is to imagine his future reader. His plan is to imagine meeting
that person and asking about what happens in Otto in Flames.
Thus, Anton is consumed by another inspired immersion. He is
transported to a cave, where he ends up speaking to a statue of
the pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus. Because the statue has
read Otto in Flames to the last page, Anton assumes that this
must be his future reader. But his attempts to speak to the
statue are foiled. Having talked us through these strange events,
the real Otto completes the episode with a reading of Chapter Two
of Anton’s book, which concerns a one-way flight from London to
Vienna, sitting next to passenger dressed as a priest.