The serious, stern old man sits in a completely sterile, joyless, and inhuman room. Its windows are hypothetically beautiful, but contextually and therefore pragmatically they are hideous. He says words to many people, and they agree with what he says. The content of his words are irrelevant, they would agree regardless of what he said simply based on who he is.
"I will cure the boy," he says, and he is believed entirely. He arrives at the Merrick household, intent on doing exactly that, and is swallowed whole. Little Alan feels better inside, or at least whoever's inside of him does. Less hungry, anyways. He's still as un-suffocated as ever.
News of this seemingly impossible event wreaks havoc on the entire hamlet. There is not a soul in town who does not shiver at the tale. It may be seemingly impossible, but the witnesses to this event shiver more than anyone else, and it's a shiver that is absolutely undeniable, so it has happened regardless of its seeming impossibility. The mouth of Hell may as well have opened up beneath the entire world and swallowed it whole. Life is now very hard for everyone. Everyone is asking (silently, to themselves, within their heads, so as not to stir any further distress,) what the Merricks did to make this happen. What could they have possibly done wrong? While there is a near-infinite list of things they have done wrong relating to the upbringing of this boy, what is now afflicting him is in fact not due to any of those things, and they had no part in making it happen. It's simply an inevitability. It is something that would've happened regardless of anything else that has ever happened, will happened, or could happen. Everyone suffocates, at least a little bit, but Alan.
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