Normal people are so very normal, aren’t they? That’s just something I have observed. A little observation of mine. I don’t want to make too much of it though. I don’t want to try to milk it much too much. Don’t want to milk it, don’t want to milk it. So very normal, so very normal. I’ll say no more on the subject – I will hold my tongue and bide my time. I will be as silent as a hill. I will brood silently and let the weather play about my head as it will. On some days the clouds hang heavy in the sky, on other days the gales come raging in from the West and all the trees will be bent sideways. There’s plenty of weather to go around, one way or another, and so there’s nothing to worry about on that score. Set your minds at rest on that matter – we’ll never run out of weather here. I’ll say no more about that either, seeing as how no one has asked me to say anything in the first place. I am bursting with things that I’d like to talk about but now that it comes to it I don’t know what they are. We’re sitting here in uneasy silence, no one trusting anyone else, no one wanting to say anything. Someone has to make the first move. Someone has to say what needs to be said. My companions are taciturn and moody however – no one wants to give away any more than they strictly need to. There is an air of expectancy all the same and we can all feel it. A light breeze has sprung up and it is stirring the surface of the lake. Melancholy bird calls are echoing across the valley. Lonely, melancholy cries which only served to underline the isolation of our situation. Where are we? What are we doing here? Dark clouds pass overhead and there is a sudden chill in the air. There are uncomfortable issues that need to be addressed; uncomfortable issues that none of us are able to understand – what needs to be done, and why? And by whom? A fish breaks the surface of the water – presumably it’s a fish anyway. It sounds like a fish but it could be something darker, something more sinister. No one likes to say anything; that’s a line of inquiry that no one feels qualified to open up. Some questions are best left unasked, as we all realise only too well. Uncomfortable truths need to be addressed but no one knows what they are. Some of us are human in form, others are not. Some of us are stealthy reptilian creatures with thin lips and grey skin that is covered in very fine scales; others amongst us are ghost-like presences that can barely be seen in the gloom. No one wants to be the first to speak. By now the sun is sinking fast behind the ridge of spruces on the far horizon. We are all veterans of the Dream Wars here and as a consequence we’re all too aware of what lies at stake. The wind has picked up all of a sudden and there is a real chill in it – the end of the world is approaching rapidly and there isn’t one of us who doesn’t know it…