No one had ever told her this basic fact: not everyone got to be loved.

Direction, like time, is a general thing, the deprived of boundaries and borders. It is an endless process interception and reinterception, doubling back and adjusting.

The Story of Solomon is the only way I know how to explain. And then, in smaller letters: Forgive me.

That is the strangest thing about the world: how it looks so different from every point of view.

The alchemist was dazed and dumbfounded, as the true meaning of the magic was revealed: *The dead will rise from glade to glen and ancient will be young again*. The dead had, after all, risen. From dead and dry things there was growth, and new life everywhere. And the endlessly long winter had at last turned to spring. From life to death and back again to life. It was indeed the greatest magic in the world.

I wonder if it's ever really possible to know the truth about someone else, or if the best we can do is just stumble into each other, heads down, hoping to avoid collision. I...wonder how many people are clutching secrets like little fists, little rocks sitting in the pits of their stomachs. All of them, maybe.

And even though I'm standing in the middle of the biggest crowd I've ever seen in my life, I suddenly feel very alone.