Sometimes, when I am walking, I find that I can concentrate on nothing but the transient patch of floor directly in front of my feet. Sometimes my focus on this can be so intense that everything around me loses definition and I am overwhelmed by a strangely blissful feeling of solidarity. At this point, there is nothing but myself and the strange ( Read more... )

   The first thing Sophie thinks, on returning to the place where she had once died, is how mundane it now seems. She is almost sure that when she was younger (around the time when it had all taken place) it had seemed less so. Her memories of it are full of terrible security and violent escape. Sighing, she supposes that in any case, it now ( Read more... )

"He told me once about polar bears - what solitary animals they are. They mate just once a year. One time in a whole year. There is no such thing as a lasting male-female bond in their world. One male polar bear and one female polar bear meet by sheer chance somewhere in their frozen vastness, and they mate. It doesn't take long. And once they are ( Read more... )