i am approaching this story with my head lowered, on my knees. i am crawling slowly towards the heart of the story without looking up. i am taking care not to let the first touch of my body on the story be with my feet but with my hands instead, which are softer and gentler, i am moving my limbs with slow care so as not to startle the story. i am humble in my attitude towards this story so that i am not humbled by it. this story is older and more powerful than i will ever be and has resisted everyone’s attempts to divide, to map, to transect, to elaborate it. at the shore of the story as my hands press into the gravel my eyes will be closed; i will not look at the story until all of me is safely on it, in it. i will resist treating the story as a metaphor for anything not-story, i will be silent when it sings is, is, is. i will do it in the right way, and when the story has finished with me i will keep its secrets and not tell anyone until i am on the land of the hamlet again.

the story:

when she returned from the trip she was shaking so violently with cold that i had to undress her myself as the hot water ran for the bath; i helped her into it as i one day would do with my children when they were small. we did not speak about it after except that once, much later, she told me that when the hull of the boat scraped against the shore as they made landfall she knew that it had been a mistake, but what was there to do but go forward?