Gnomon

by Nick Harkaway

“Then please record that I am a woman in the prime of life, whose powers are severely limited by authorities perishing with thirst, and now demanding that I make a gift to them of the waters of memory.”

Just because something is done according to the law does not mean that it is lawful.

Like Sherlock Holmes I can read the evidence and infer from the reality of the present the map of the past, and now I know where he walks his dog. (I don’t really.)

although since then I’ve seen the very rich get themselves into states of sorrow and horror which are inaccessible without vast fortunes: with insane money comes insanity.

The debts of our legends are never cancelled, because the seed of their renewal is contained in each payment.

A woman without her husband is a widow, a daughter without parents is an orphan, but there is no word for what I am because it should not be, or perhaps because it comes so often to so many that it is unworthy of mention. He was my son: I need no word to frame what I am now. It is with me always.

That’s not how I talk when I’m buying groceries, by the way, that’s exclusively for when there’s a pissing contest going on, most usually with a man.

Do not melt the metal: this is not jewellery we are making. It is magic. The transformation is not chemical, it is impossible. Respect the discipline: the art of what cannot be.

Maybe I am grit, being expelled into an ocean as strange as this tiny curve, or maybe the curve is infinite and I will live like this for ever.

“Don’t look back,” Know-all says as I pass by. “There is a war in heaven. Don’t look back.”