Don’t let this distract from how close I am to cracking Black Hole Theory wide open, but the reason I even did that little dive into “dark pockets” in the first place was because I initially wondered if it might have anything to do with this:
Rifts in “the fabric of spacetime” immediately conjure black holes to mind, after all… My initial thought was that since the Felt are what fill English’s “dark pockets” (read: empty eye sockets), maybe the common interpretation that this coat has one hole in it for every member of the Felt fits here; i.e. every member of the Felt fits into one of the “pockets” on the coat.
But really, all the clues on this page are in the commentary…
The line “any gang does well to have an in-house doctor on hand” seems to imply that the Felt isn’t all that well constructed, since judging by this intermission, none of its members are actually doctors. Until we meet Doc Scratch, that is. So I guess that makes this line foreshadowing? Oh yeah, I guess it is.
Book 2, p. 307
While Stitch’s job is to stitch up the Felt when they get holes in them, Doc Scratch’s job is to doctor scratches. Being able to use gaps in his knowledge as weapons toward his own ends isn’t just a boast; it’s literally his primary job description!