It was a rather extraordinary conversation if you think about it -- both of us speaking in code. But not military code, not Intelligence or Resistance code -- just feminine code.

It's like being in love, discovering your best friend.

But people need lift, too. People don't get moving, they don't soar, they don't achieve great heights, without someone buoying them up.

Five years of destruction and mayhem, lives lost everywhere, shortages of food and fuel and clothing - and the insane mind behind it just urges us all on and on to more destruction. And we all keep playing.

I think as readers we put ourselves in the protagonist's place because we want to be like that person. That's why sometimes we don't like protagonists who aren't all that nice; we want to relate to the protagonist.

But a part of me lies buried in lace and roses on a riverbank in France-a part of me is broken off forever. A part of me will be unflyable, stuck in the climb.

Hope is treacherous, but how can you live without it?