The Likeness

nothing takes as much work as effortlessness.

I didn’t realize I was heading for the ruined cottage until it rose up in front of me, a smudge of thicker dark against the sky, stars flickering like altar lights in the windows. I switched off the torch: I could find my way across the field without it, and a light in the cottage was likely to make the neighbors very antsy, possibly even antsy enough to come investigating. The long grass swished, a soft steady sound, around my ankles. I reached up and touched the stone lintel, like a salute, before I went through the doorway.

I kept walking, nice and slow like a good little target, and thought

No one came. Something shifted off to one side, something heavy, but when I whipped the torch around it was a cow, staring back at me with wide, sorrowful eyes.

It was a bright night, the moon high in a clear cold sky, flicking chips of white off the dark hawthorn leaves; I buttoned

Take your torch.

nothing takes as much work as effortlessness

Our entire society’s based on discontent: people wanting more and more and more, being constantly dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their decor, their clothes, everything. Taking it for granted that that’s the whole point of life, never to be satisfied. If you’re perfectly happy with what you’ve got-specially if what you’ve got isn’t even all that spectacular-then you’re dangerous. You’re breaking all the rules, you’re undermining the sacred economy, you’re challenging every assumption that society’s built on.

I could have hit full speed and taken us soaring up off the road, into the vast silence at the heart of those lights and out on the other side where nothing could touch us, ever.

Conan Doyle: ‘whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ ”