A ball of points. Points meshed in all directions. Indeed a curious object. Conceived in sloppily nay uncontrollable handwriting intended for elegant letters chiselled in stone. A pile of inscribed slabs. Deposited. Word has it all must perish. Concur, must concur. The artist, pupil in hand, perhaps only in thought yet at least so, escaped into a place beyond the border of the empire. The noise of the empire hums in memory. It’s out there, back there. Pupil nods in agreement. Feel at the back of their necks threating arms. Time and space between them no matter. Overwhelming vision of foreboding. Battle raging concepts of defence. Visualises himself alone with his boy amid a field of corpses stenching. Man and boy rising from the ground begin to fly, documentary camera inspecting the dead. Millions of beautiful boys in mud and blood. Mud and blood on uniforms. Numbness is sadness of the eye. Waste beyond waste. Life each individual life a journey to this. No witness. Court and criminal erased by verdict pronounced. We’re witness to remain best forgotten. Build. Yet an empty hardness no defence against the past. History of last witness erased. Begin again, nothing. Same nothing? Who’s to say. No god watching. No. Feel empire breathing on the back of my neck. Mine too, the boy winked. They were walking out of it. Time heals old wounds. After many days eating these berries they descend to the shore of a lake. In the distance an island. Among its trees what looks for all the world like a monastery. Their hearts sink. The cross still riding over the land and water. Clinging to each other they sit down and weep.