and much had changed in the city and towering in the cleanest widest smartest avenue he found a large square building painted in all conceivable nuances and definitions of gray and it was so imposingly square the browncoat could have confused it with the kaaba for it too had fleshy chains gyrating around it like exploded satellites whose arid insignificant fragments were still kept in check and hypnotized motion by the buildings gravitational seduction ; he could have confused it with the kaaba but for the turbid throngs of people this actual gray building was not spinning around itself but inhaling at a safe steady rate through its sidemouth and exudating forth , faithfully restored in number and viscidity , through a narrower slit on the opposite side .