I'm only happy when I forget to exist. When just my eyes or my ears or my skin exist. - John Fowles

The bowed head, the buried face. She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspended the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.

They looked down on her; and she looked up through them.

There is no plan. All is hazard. And the only thing that will preserve us is ourselves.