Bursting with a power he cannot contain, more than the muscles of his legs can bear without striding him forward, he starts to laugh. Oh, laugh madly. He would surely be deemed insane could anyone see him. But he is alone. So he swings his arms like a six-year-old soldier, laughing and crying, and the dog runs around him, barking with joy as they ruffle the nap of the forest. The destination of his body is irrelevant, but his mind is travelling at pace, leaping hurdles of comprehension. It’s all true. The essence of every major religion touches this truth. We are one. And what is the flow from thing to thing but love?

The earth, rotating at 1,037 miles per hour, offers the sun’s miracle to New Yorkers on their lunch breaks and the New Forest falls into the peace of dusk, and Logan slows. He had no intention of walking home, but he recognizes by a fallen tree that he is only a few hundred yards from his starting point, and feels, for the first time, the cold of his toes in their boots, the pinch of hunger in his stomach. He holds out his hand in the half-light and watches in wonder as the edges of it bleed into the cool air, becoming the scent of wet leaves.

How long might he stay in this magnificent limbo, where nothing is defined or determined, nothing is separate or alone? A few steps later, the answer arrives. Crossing the road, he drops back into his separated self like a stone. For there, in the driveway, is Jules.

‌Peculiar

Without her, she thought, he’d go mad. She couldn’t be responsible. She was surely the stopper in his bottle of insanity, and removing herself would leave him fountaining craziness into the vacuum. So she’d imagined. Now here he was, orbited by the dog, crossing the road on the prow of a smile like a priest bearing down on his congregation.

You got here just now? he asks, taking the handle of the largest suitcase as the taxi drives off. You could have called. I would have picked you up. He hefts her luggage over the gravel and plants it triumphantly at the front door, reaching for his key. How was Dubai?

She stares at him as though she has lost all capacity to understand English.

Hot, she says, after a moment.

And Prissy?

She watches him insert his key into the lock as though she is watching a chimpanzee perform surgery.

Priscilla’s fine, she says.

Not neurotic? he asks, dragging the cases into the hallway.

Neurotic but fine, she says. Finlay? She is watching him very carefully in his busyness; now hanging up his scarf and coat, now returning to help her out of hers.