There is a wild wind blowing outside. I've spent the past hour in a sensory daze, glutting myself on words and sentences. There was Leonard Cohen (Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in) and Tom Stoppard (We are tragedians, you see? We follow directions. There is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good, unluckily. That is what tragedy means) and Rousseau (We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves). The wind interrupted me rudely, banging a door downstairs to get my attention.

It's almost midnight and there's a lightning storm on. Every so often the sky splits apart and the whole world turns silver. Panda remains unimpressed: he is fast asleep under the bed, his breath misting the tile. I crawled under there a little while ago to rub his belly. I was lonely, and the storm makes me pensive. He stared at me with his blue-brown eyes for a minute, then rolled onto his back and fell back to sleep.