Odd Transformations

When you get a title like that you wonder if the chapter is going to be a reminiscence of one of Dave's acid trips. We weren't disappointed.

Cerebus drags himself back into the hotel and collapses onto the pile of money sacks. He falls asleep and begins to dream. He's standing in a stream, someone calls his name and all of a sudden he's a child aardvark, although still clad in his papal robes. Poling herself towards him is a large woman in a maids outfit. She's his mother and implores him to put his hat on, because no one wants to look at those ears. I wondered if this was a real memory in the dream. Was Cerebus, an aardvark child, really raised by human parents and forced to hide his differences?

Cerebus runs away, across the water. Possible Jesus parallels there. He leaps as high as he can and sails into space, as he's flying he encounters the baby he threw away, still wailing. While staring backwards at the infant he crashes into a large roman column.

He comes to at the base of a tree, now wearing his vest and medallions. Coming towards him is Henrot, wearing Sophia's chainmail bikini. Now there was an image I never needed to see. Cerebus takes off in terror and is forcing his way through a dense forest. Once again his clothes have changed and he's wearing some sort of military coat, with a fur trimmed cape. He emerges into a long grass path lined by statues and giant chess pieces. As Cerebus stalks down the path the statues and chess pieces rise into the air and float around behind him. In front of Cerebus is the moon. A voice from one of the craters invites him inside.

Sophia is waiting for him, she removes her bikini and tells him to come to bed, once again he's in his papal robes. Cerebus climbs into bed with Sophia and she morphs into Jaka. The two of them twine around each other and Jaka says she'll never leave him again. Cerebus falls asleep in her arms and wakes on the pile of money. There's a message about Cerebus here and it's debatable what he loves more, money or Jaka.

He clambers up and goes to his bedroom. There's a long three and a bit page sequence of Cerebus standing by his bed urinating. It's not clear if he was using a chamber pot, but I sure hope so. Again Cerebus falls asleep, this time in his bed.

Visually the chapter was arresting, with a lot of location and costume changes, this would have stretched both Dave and Gerhard.