MAN (obviously upset): Everything! Of course it means everything! I’ve been talking to you for nearly a year now, you have to appreciate that this is important!

WOMAN (nodding calmly as she leans back in her chair): So you say, but I’d like you to elaborate. After all these years, how can this be so significant?

MAN: Well … you see … then it wasn’t my fault.

Tram brakes screech. There is heavy traffic outside.

MAN (cont.): I feel liberated. More settled. It’s as if I’ve really succeeded at something, at last. I’ve searched for them for such a long time.

(LENGTHY PAUSE)

WOMAN: Have you really? Searched for them?

MAN: Yes, definitely. Not physically as such. That seemed so impossible. But in a way I’ve been searching. Coming to you has been a way of finding them.

WOMAN (smiling): Is that so? I wasn’t the one who showed you the photo from the Ski Museum!

MAN: No, but you’re the one who made me stronger. More aware. More certain of what I have to do now. You said it yourself: I have to distinguish between what is in my power to change, and the factors that lie beyond my control.

WOMAN (nodding): I see. What is it you now have the power to do that wasn’t possible for you to do before?

A door slams outside the office.

WOMAN (cont.): Can you give a more detailed description of what this sense of relief feels like?

The MAN sits still for a few seconds, and shrugs.

WOMAN: What has changed?

MAN: Everything. Everything has changed. Things can come into balance. Everything can be different.

WOMAN (smiling): Everything, no less. That’s good.

MAN: They’ve owned me for such a long time. Now I’m the one who owns them. The tables are turned. I call it karma.

WOMAN (distracted): That’s good.

The WOMAN looks at her watch. The MAN gets to his feet.

MAN: Yes, it’s good that everything’s going to be different now. At long last.

FRIDAY 8 DECEMBER 2017

THE LYNX

The animal was eighteen months old and at the beginning of his first whole winter without his mother and siblings. He was unusually large. His fur had been soft and reddish-brown in summer, but by late autumn it had thickened up into a greyish-white, thick coat. After loping several kilometres through pouring rain, he now merged into the winter-shrivelled landscape, almost bare of snow.

His mother had taught him that days were for rest. The evening was the lynx’s hunting time, he knew, even though he often broke the rule. He had the sight of an eagle and moved soundlessly, even in pitch darkness. And he was curious.

His mother had given him a cuff on the ear every now and again.