played out in every quiet corner of the universe’s being. And surely Leo himself was a part of that game too, he realised. He was mud. He was a mud thing; not apart from the world but of it, a tiny footnote in the great book of existence. He longed desperately to open that book and scour it from start to finish, and come away with the purpose of creation. His will diminished to nothing. His ambition diminished to nothing. Almost everything in the universe was not him, and yet nonetheless, he was universe.