Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Well, Mumsy, no, not really. Your beloved large-print sagas of rags, riches, and heartbreak were no camouflage against the miseries trained on you by the tennis ball launcher of life, were they? But, yes, Mum, there again, you have a point. Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.

Belief, like fear, or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity, and principles of uncertainty. Phenomenon that determines the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believed I would never have done what I did today. These forces, that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we imagine ourself to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives, and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. At each point of intersection, each encounter, suggests a new potential direction. Proposition, I have fallen in love with Louisa Ray. Is this possible? I just met her, and yet, I feel like something important has happened to me.