THE YOUNG POET DEPARTS ON A QUEST AND FINDS HIMSELF in the Otherworld. There, he is seduced by a fairy, or a goddess, and experiences the ecstatic transports of the enchanted realm. Tannhäuser finds Venus in her mountain paradise. Oisín is whisked off to Tír na nÓg by Niamh on her white horse. But eventually the poet grows homesick, and longs to return to his former life. When he does, he realizes that years have passed. The world he once knew is unrecognizable. Hans Castorp finds himself in the Otherworld of the mountain sanatorium, and like sand through his fingers, seven years of his life slip away. When he finally emerges from his reverie, Europe is on the brink of catastrophe.

I’ve been thinking about how variations of this story exist through history, through cultures, because the force it speaks of must exist. A force in the wild that operates out of time, that seeks to lure us, fevered, into a state beyond reason; beyond the commitments that otherwise bind us to our lives and the people we love. What is this force, and why does it seek to enjoin our souls with itself? Is it just a blunt phenomenon like gravity, acting with no purpose or intent? One star devouring another in the vacuum of space? Or is this wildness somehow conscious? Seducing us to abandon as revenge, as corrective, for the order we have imposed upon it.

The question I have is—Does the poet always know when he has left the mortal world, and entered the enchanted realm? And what if he doesn’t remember the way back?

In the afterglow of the tunings, a profound and untrammelled joy came over me. The house felt empty and cavernous without Ashley and yet somehow, after the tunings, I was no longer concerned with my solitude. I loved Ashley, more than anything on Earth, and I loved Paul, but I also loved my life, for the first time in ages. I felt wonder again at being in the world and in my body, and at the limitless pleasures that existed beyond it, in transcending my body and reaching into yet unknown folds of existence and sensation. I was still only managing a couple of hours of sleep a night, and the headaches persisted, but at least now I felt there was a greater purpose at hand. A greater mystery to which to commit myself.

After breakfast I drove to the supermarket, and it felt good to be seen, and good to see others. The thing I realized was—no one cared! No one cared about who I was or what I was doing. They were completely consumed by their own solipsism. I felt genuine wonder at the bounty of the Earth as I moved amongst the produce, lightly squeezing grapefruits to gauge their firmness, and taking a full minute to assess the optimal ripeness of a banana bunch.