I will die without having understood what happened this morning, he thinks. He remembers being beside, but not within, some struggle, some war, though even this doesn’t matter any more. Everything is at war, but the war is impersonal and there is no war inside himself. He knows he is nothing to the world, and that to be one person is a meaningless, useless thing, and it is in this that there is strength. Some awareness stretches beyond all this. He can feel it observing everything now, but he does not recognise it; does not know if it loves, hates or is indifferent. All that he knows is that it is beyond him; that it is there.

Saint John raises his knees up to his chest, welcoming these realisations. The birds are asleep; their forms little dark blocks of deeper night above his head, trapped in the myriad knotting of branches. The only sound is the water soothing him with its lapping, and the fox’s low and throbbing growl. The fox’s eyes shine in the darkness, and still it ignores Saint John; it will ignore him forever.

There is only the night. He looks at it, unable to sleep. He wants to always be able to recall the starry sky before the rain is loosed from it; the sky that hangs over these dark rustling trees; that hangs over this shimmering lake; that hangs over these resting birds; that hangs over him, who has become so alone and so full of wonder at everything. He wants this to be all he can see in this big world that is so much to be loved, so much to be desired, so much to be wondered at, and in whom I have always found such frenetic, sensual rhapsody, such glory, such indifferent splendour and such great disappointment.

Saint John feels the chill of the night against his cheeks. A breeze rustles the tree above him; this beauty belongs to no one. He is ready.

It begins to rain.

In his first …