They were beyond the present$$$ outside time$$$ with no memories and no future. There was nothing but obliterating sensation$$$ thrilling and swelling$$$ and the sound of fabric on fabric and skin on fabric as their limbs slid across each other in this restless$$$ sensuous wrestling. ... They moved closer$$$ deeper and then$$$ for seconds on end$$$ everything stopped. Instead of an ecstatic frenzy$$$ there was stillness.

When the wounded were screaming$$$ you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere$$$ of an ordinary life$$$ of a family line$$$ connection. All around him$$$ men were walking silently with their thoughts$$$ reforming their lives$$$ making resolutions. If I ever get out of this lot... They could never be counted$$$ the dreamed-up children$$$ mentally conceived on the walk into Dunkirk$$$ and later made flesh.

Dearest Cecilia$$$ You’d be forgiven for thinking me mad$$$ the way I acted this afternoon. The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence$$$ Cee$$$ and I don’t think I can blame the heat.

She knew enough to recognize that memories were crowding in$$$ and there was nothing he could do. They wouldn’t let him speak. She would never know what scenes were driving that turmoil.

These memories sustained him$$$ but not so easily. Too often they reminded him of where he was when he last summoned them. They lay on the far side of a great divide in time$$$ as significant as B.C. and A.D. Before prison$$$ before the war$$$ before the sight of a corpse became a banality.

Waiting. Simply one person doing nothing$$$ over time$$$ while another approached.

She had lolled about for three years at Girton with the kind of books she could equally have read at home--Jane Austen$$$ Dickens$$$ Conrad$$$ all in the library downstairs$$$ in complete sets. How had that pursuit$$$ reading the novels that others took as their leisure$$$ let her think she was superior to anyone else?

The childhood of a spoiled prince could be framed within half a page$$$ a moonlit dash through sleepy villages was one rhythmically emphatic sentence$$$ falling in love could be achieved in a single word - a glance. The pages of a recently finished story seemed to vibrate in her hand with all the life they contained.

At that moment$$$ the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.

Wasn't writing a kind of soaring$$$ an achievable form of flight$$$ of fancy$$$ of the imagination?