The story takes the form of a guilt-ridden confession. In the opening, the adult Binky hangs over a sickle, bound from head to toe and listening to "Ave Maria" as he draws with a pen in his mouth. He declares his intention: "to purge myself of the compulsive neurosis which I have served since I officially left Catholicism on Halloween, 1958." He justifies the work to communicate with the "many others are slaves to their neuroses" and who, despite believing themselves isolated, number so many that they "would entwine the globe many times over in a vast chain of common suffering".