Then I looked into his eyes. They were fierce, like the eyes of a jackal. What I said to him I have forgotten, my attempts to get him away from me all in vain. His grip was strong and his gaze stronger. As he spoke to me his words blossomed in my head, transforming into images of snakes and birds, of giant self-transforming flotillas and beings so immense I was as an ant before stars and nebulae.

‘Everyone dies.’ He said, his voice hoarse and powerful like the distant growl of an earthquake. ‘But have you really lived? What you hold in your hands, now, in this moment: life, the most precious gift imaginable. All that you could experience, the depths to which you could know yourself, to which you could feel and understand profoundly, even if only for one moment of awareness, these are yours and yours alone. And if you fail to seek them, if you never plumb the depths of the unique instrument that you are, what was the point of you?’ His eyes held me, though I was aware of dark flesh and dark hair that starkly contrasted with that bright golden gaze. ‘Everyone dies. Take this chance to truly live.’