It Ain't What You Do, It's What It Does To You

I have not bummed across America with only a dollar to spare, one pair of busted Levi's and a bowie knife. I have lived with thieves in Manchester. I have not padded through the Taj Mahal, barefoot, listening to the space between each footfall picking up and putting down its print against the marble floor. But I skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day so still I could hear each set of ripples as they crossed. I felt each stone's inertia spend itself against the water; then sink. I have not toyed with a parachute cord while perched on the lip of a light-aircraft; but I held the wobbly head of a boy at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands. And I guess that the tightness in the throat and the tiny cascading sensation somewhere inside us are both part of that sense of something else. That feeling, I mean.