Giles was walking, not thinking, letting his eye take in the view, his ear the sounds, letting his skin feel the air. He was not giving his attention to any particular bird or bush. His thoughts were at rest. The hectic week was at end and he chose to empty his mind in this place, away from work and home.

As he walked beside a slatted fence that separated the path from a field of ripe wheat, yellow sunlight fell in stripes between the upright planks. There was a kind of flashing as he passed, the light switching on and off between brightness and shadow on his eyes. For a moment he seemed to be driving in France along a straight road bordered with poplars. The effect was hypnotic. He fell into a trance.

Whether this was England or France was not a question that concerned him. He was not in a state of mind to ask questions. The light falling in stripes held his attention. Something shifted. The sun had become the moon and was shining in through a window. The fence had become the bars of a cot in which he was lying. He had become a young child and found he was able to pull himself up by grasping the bars with his chubby hands. He sat gazing through the window.

The moon floated like a bubble, like one of those his sister had blown for him that afternoon. It was supported by the air, silent in the starlit sky, gleaming with magical promise. Was it his sister who had blown the moon bubble, or had he blown it himself? He watched it hanging there and knew for certain that he had created it himself, for he was his sister, she, who was big enough to do anything, to create anything. She had made the moon, the earth and the whole universe by blowing it out of a ring that she had first dipped into a pot of magic. She, who was sitting here now, gazing in wonder and delight. The gazing child was the whole universe. Giles gazed and gazed and in that moment, he knew everything.