The light of the Gospel teaches us to see the world with the eyes of Jesus.
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CHAPTER 20 : OH
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The house was quiet in the way only island houses could be.
Not silent. Never silent. The wind moved faintly around the walls outside, and somewhere beyond the glass and the stone the sea kept up it’s endless work, dark and unseen.
Armitage set his watch on the small table and sat for a moment at the edge of the bed, loosening his cuff.
It should have been an ordinary end to an ordinary day.
Instead, Merrin’s voice returned.
Kara’s mentioned you.
He stared at nothing for a second, jaw tightening slightly.
Kara, beside her, all pink cheeks and hasty explanations.
Not in a weird way.
Most wall-related.
His mouth nearly betrayed him.
Most wall-related.
Christ. He should have left it there. A funny moment. Nothing more than that. Kara was easily flustered. Merrin was clearly the sort of friend who enjoyed applying pressure to a bruise just to see if a person yelped.
And yet.
She had mentioned him.
[[MORE]]Not as one mentioned the man from the post office, or someone at the harbour, or a neighbour who had once carried a parcel. Enough that her friend had looked at him with interest. Enough that Kara had rushed to explain herself in that breathless way she did when she was embarrassed and trying not to be.
His fingers stilled against the open cuff.
Oh.
The thought came quietly, but it did not land lightly.
Kara might have a thing for him.
He looked down at his hands.
A younger version of himself might have known what to do with that. Or perhaps not. It was difficult to say. That man was long gone now, stripped away by years, and by one particularly brutal lesson in what it meant to be found wanting.
Boring in bed.
Boring in life.
It was a vicious thing, to be so precisely reduced. More vicious still that some part of him had believed it.
He had once believed that love, properly done, was made of ordinary things.
Work. Loyalty. A warm house. A stocked fridge. A hand at the small of a back in a crowded room. Remembering how she took her tea. Turning up, again and again, whether or not anyone thought to praise the effort.
He had built a marriage out of those things.
It had not been enough.
He had not shouted when he found them.
That, more than anything, sometimes returned to trouble him.
Not the sight itself. Not even her words afterward, though those had left their marks neatly enough. It was his own stillness he remembered. The strange immediate certainty that there was no point making a scene when the problem had so plainly been there all along.
He had been the problem.
Too quiet. Too careful. Too little of whatever else was required.
So he had left.
No, he wasn’t arrogant enough to arrive easily at the idea that a woman like Kara Baldwin might want him. Not Kara, with her quick wit, her London sharpness and her soft heart that she tried to hide beneath apology and humour. Not Kara, who made a room feel inhabited just by standing in it.
But, she had mentioned him.
Enough for her friend to know his name.
Enough for her to blush.
His chest tightened with something he didn’t entirely trust.
It had been a very long time since he’d allowed himself to wonder if being steady might be worth something to someone. And a very long time since the thought of him had followed anyone home.
He swallowed once, hard.
This was dangerous.
Not because Kara had done anything wrong.
Because hope, in his experience, had very poor timing.
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MUSIC FOR CHAPTER: “Shot in the Dark”
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CHAPTER 19 : TEXTFULLY YOURS
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Kara smiled despite herself and shrugged out of Armitage’s coat with more care than the act required.
Kara:
You’re at the pub for less than five minutes and you’re already unbearable.
The reply came at once.
Merrin:
Just stating facts. He is, in fact, gorgeous 👀
Kara stared at the screen.
Kara:
That is… nope, not going to comment.
Merrin:
Interesting 🤔
Kara:
Sighs. Not interesting at all.
Merrin:
He looks like he’d apologise to a chair if he bumped into it. And who has apparently been quietly rebuilding your life one repair at a time.
Kara sat down on the edge of the sofa.
Kara:
That is not what he’s doing 😐
Three dots appeared.
Vanished.
Reappeared.
Merrin:
Babe.
Kara:
Do not babe me. You’ve been here less than an hour and are already conducting surveilance.
Merrin:
I don’t need surveillance. I’ve got eyes, Kara. You like him. He clearly likes you. What are you waiting for?
Kara:
I like him as a friend.
Merrin:
[[MORE]]Kara. He’s fixed half your house. He’s given you his time. He picked me up from the ferry like a man being quietly vetted for husband suitability.
Kara made a strangled sound that would have been embarrassing if her friend had been there.
Kara:
He’s being helpful. That’s literally his job. Island handyman.
Merrin:
So helpful in fact I may need to make a spreadsheet 💻
Kara:
You’re daft, you know that?
Merrin:
And you’re avoiding what you’re feeling. Not that this is anything new. Kara, I know you and I damn well know when you’re interested in someone.
Kara:
He’s just… Armitage.
Merrin replied so fast it was almost rude.
Merrin:
That is the least informative sentence ever written. And you’re a writer! 😂
Kara:
I don’t know how else to explain him.
A pause.
Merrin:
Try.
Kara looked around the cottage. The lamp on in the window. The quiet. The faint sound of the sea beyond the walls. His coat hanging on the door. She swallowed.
Kara:
He’s Armitage. He’s kind in a way that sneaks up on you. He fixes things without making you feel stupid for needing them fixed. He remembers things I say even, when I wish he hadn’t. He tells me to lock my door. He’s very… steady.
The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.
Then stopped.
Then appeared again.
Merrin:
Oh, sweetheart 💖
Kara stared at that for a moment too long.
Kara:
Don’t start.
Merrin:
I’m not starting anything. I’m just saying that is not how people describe a handyman.
Kara let out a reluctant laugh.
Kara:
I’m ignoring that on grounds of dignity.
Merrin:
That ship sailed when you said “He’s kind in a way that sneaks up on you.”
Kara groaned and tipped back against the sofa.
Kara:
I hate you. Go back to London 😡
Merrin:
No you don’t. You adore me. Now answer me honestly. Do you like him?
Kara went still.
There it was. The question underneath the teasing. The one Merrin had probably been asking in twelve different ways since she stepped off the ferry.
Her thumb hovered.
Kara:
You’re ridiculous, but if answering the question shuts you up. I don’t know.
Merrin:
Right. Do you feel calmer when he’s around?
Kara blinked at that question.
Kara:
That’s not fair.
Merrin:
So, that’s a yes 😏
Kara:
When are you leaving… Monday afternoon?
Merrin:
I’ll stay as long as it takes to get you to tell me what I need to know.
Kara:
Yes, I feel calm around him.
Merrin:
That’s not nothing.
Kara swallowed again. Her eyes prickled unexpectedly, which was annoying and uncalled for and very much the fault of March and ferries and best friends who had know her for far too long.
Kara:
I know.
Another pause.
When Merrin replied again, her tone had softened.
Merrin:
You’re allowed, you know.
Kara frowned at the screen.
Kara:
Allowed what?
Merrin:
To feel good with someone. To laugh. To want things.
Kara closed her eyes.
For a moment she was back in London in the worst weeks after Samuel died, Merrin in her kitchen making tea she never drank, opening curtains Kara had wanted shut, speaking gently, but never carefully enough to sound false.
Kara:
I know that… in theory.
Merrin:
Yes. You’ve always excelled at “theory.” 🤣
Kara laughed.
Kara:
Rude.
Merrin:
No, accurate.
Kara:
It still feels strange sometimes. I’ll be having a nice evening and then I remember, he’s gone. It’s just me now.
Merrin’s reply came back without delay.
Merrin:
Of course it feels strange. That daft bugger went and died on you and he was the best of men… in London. Missing Samuel doesn’t cancel out the fact that you’re still here, living 🫂
Kara:
You’re annoyingly wise for someone who’s probably currently drinking pub wine on an island with a population smaller than my secondary school.
Merrin:
Yes, I am. Thank you for noticing. Also the pub wine is shocking. Pray for me 🍷
All I’m saying is that man has the air of someone who would happily carry your shopping, repair your walls and yearn in silence for six to eight business months.
Kara laughed again into the quiet room.
Kara:
You cannot just assign him a yearning schedule.
Merrin:
Watch me. I’m excellent at time organisation 📝
Kara:
Got to sleep. Tomorrow we walk up to my favourite spot on the island. Wear something sensible.
Merrin:
Fine. But tomorrow I will require more details. All of them.
Kara:
I’ve got a warm coat you can wear. I have two.
Kara’s gaze flicked over to his hanging on her door, next to hers.
Merrin:
Night, Kara.
Kara:
Goodnight 💖
Kara’s smile faded into something quieter.
She looked at those words for a long time before locking her phone and setting it beside her, on the cushion.
Outside, the wind moved around the cottage in low, restless sweeps. Some where beyond the dark, the sea kept going, unconcerned with her human mess.
She sat there for another minute in the lamplight. Then she stood, checked to make sure the front door was locked, it was, just as he has reminded her and readied herself for bed.
It was deeply irritating how much of her mind was taken up by one soft spoken man who drove a Land Rover.
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MUSIC FOR CHAPTER: “Flowers-Fire”
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“And no one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a hidden place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in shall see the light.”
Exploiting and hiding BW is racist and sexist, right?
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20260227 Girl’s festival 2 by Bong Grit
Via Flickr:
こちらの作品は丸くてかわいいお雛様とお内裏様。
Photo taken at Mizkan Museum, Handa city, Aichi pref.
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Light
by M. John Harrison
🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
I initially found out about M. John Harrison because his Viriconium sequence is often cited on lists of ‘books for fans of Gene Wolfe,’ but I decided to go with Light as my first novel by him because, well, I found it first.
This book was great. I didn’t know what to expect going in, but Harrison’s writing pulled me in quickly. His prose almost reminds me of a more graceful, less syntax-heavy Gibson—nimble and descriptive—but that could just be the cyberpunk influence talking. Harrison’s use of language ultimately didn’t wow me as much as his skill at constructing a story of three parallel narratives that feel deeply connected despite taking place more than a millennium apart in time. These stories are connected only by thin, omnipresent threads of light: a white cat, an anomaly in the fabric of space teeming with Lovecraftian tech, and the haunting presence of greater, potentially malevolent power.
All of the characters in this book are running from something—a person, a past, a self—and often relying on sex, drugs, and technology to satiate their fears and insecurities, but it is through these cosmic failures and patterns of self-destruction that they also seek meaning. We have Micheal Kearny (1999), the tech bro serial killer who accidentally releases an unknown cosmic energy into the world and has to keep it at bay with human sacrifices, and then we flash forward to 2400 with Seria Mau Genlicher, a girl who has given up her body to implant her consciousness into the cortex of an alien spaceship, and Ed Chianese, a virtual reality addict turned circus freak fortune teller.
It’s not clear at first how these stories are connected, but as they progress, the parallels become clearer, and they converge in the end in a really neat way, not unlike what Haruki Murakami did in Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Hell, there are even shadow people in the future timelines who appear as ethereal manifestations of memory. Honestly, if you wanted me to boil it down to a single bit of clickbait, I’d say 'as if Gibson and Murakami had a baby’ isn’t too far off, but there are also some cool space opera vibes coming from Seria Mau’s storyline that add a really unique flavour to the pot.
But what started out as something more akin to a Neuromancer or a Snow Crash with the narrative structure of Hard Boiled Wonderland ultimately became something more like a Contact by Carl Sagan in the way that it offers a super optimistic and heartwarming message about humanity, our place in the universe, and the intersection of spirituality, technology, and magic.
Alas, if I have one caveat about the book, it’s that Harrison really overdid it with the ending. Not only did it start to get a little too corny for my tastes with the hammering home of love, self-forgiveness, and higher powers, but Harrison also overexplained the mechanics of the plot, ultimately drawing back the curtains so far that the magician’s trick lost its magic, which was a bummer. That being said, the main chunk of the book was so good that I’d say the reading experience is still 100% worthwhile, especially if you like science fiction that favours subjective realities and parallel universes over real-world physics.
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I took photos of the spaces between the mirrors and the tube of a kaleidoscope. They look like stars or daphnia in a pond.
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Bishop Silvio José Báez reflects on the man born blind: even in darkness, Christ gives the light of faith.
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CHAPTER 18 : THE ARRIVAL
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The ferry was late by twelve minutes, which on Rathlin was normal. The sea was disagreeable that evening and doing nothing to improve Merrin’s first impression of island life.
Kara stood at the harbour with her hands shoved into the pockets of her coat.
It was not, technically her coat.
Armitage hold told her to keep it after the island tour he’d taken her on a fortnight ago. Keep it. For next time. She had not examined too closely why she’d worn it tonight.
“It’s not like she’s crossing the Atlantic to get to us,” she said, for perhaps the fourth time in ten minutes. “She’s just on a ferry. People do this every day. It’s not dramatic.”
Beside her, Armitage said, “Mm…”
The wind caught her hair and shoved half of it in her mouth. She batted it back into place with all the dignity of a woman losing a fight with the island and herself.
Armitage looked at her with the calm expression of a man who had seen her lose to weather before.
“You’re nervous,” he said.
“I am not.”
“You’ve adjusted your coat and scarf twice.”
“That is not evidence, Armitage.”
“You also gave me a briefing on Merrin as though I’m about to negotiate a hostage release.”
Kara opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“She can be… incisive,” she said.
“Right.”
“She means well.”
“I’m sure she does.”
“She’s… protective.”
That got the faintest shift from him. Not alarm. Just understanding.
“Well,” he said, looking out toward the ferry’s lights, “that seems reasonable.”
[[MORE]]When the ferry finally docked in a squeal of metal and rope and shouted instructions. Passengers began to emerge: locals back from the mainland, school kids bundled in coats, people carrying bags and expressions ranging from resigned to mildly seasick.
Merrin appeared at the top of the ramp in a camel coat that looked aggressively London.
Kara’s whole face lit before she could help it.
“Merrin!”
Merrin looked up, saw her, and smiled properly for the first time since disembarking. “There you are”
Kara hurried forward, nearly losing a boot to a wet patch on the concrete, and pulled her into a hug that smelled like expensive perfume and cold air and the life she had left behind.
“You made it.”
“Against all odds. I’m shattered. What a trek to get here to you! I’m not impressed with that ocean either,” Merrin said into her hair. She leaned back, looked her over once, and immediately frowned. “You’ve gone feral.”
“Oh, good, hello to you too.”
“I say it with love and light.”
Merrin’s gaze shifted past her shoulder.
Kara, with the dreadful instinct of a guilty person, turned too quickly.
Armitage was standing back a few feet. He’d already taken Merrin’s suitcase, looking exactly as he always did: composed and quietly capable in a dark coat that did absolutely nothing to make him less of a problem.
Merrin’s brows lifted.
“You must be Armitage,” she said.
“I am,” he said.
“Right. Good. Kara’s mentioned you.”
Kara nearly swallowed her own tongue.
Armitage glanced at her, then back at Merrin. “Has she?”
“Not in a weird way,” Kara said too quickly. “In a normal, entirely non-concerning way. Mostly wall-related.”
Merrin turned to him. “That somehow clarified nothing.”
One corner of Armitage’s mouth moved.
Kara saw it and thought, traitor.
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By the time they’d loaded Merrin’s bag into the Land Rover, Kara had decided the only way to survive was to keep talking.
This turned out not to help.
“So Darcy’s pub is lovely,” she said, as Armitage pulled away from the harbour. “Very cosy. Excellent food. Darcy herself is lovely too, and her wife Niamh is hilarious.”
“Good,” said Merrin from the back seat. “I prefer women who could survive a flood.”
Armitage drove with his usual steady focus, one hand loose on the wheel, his profile maddeningly calm. Kara was suddenly and uncomfortable aware of how domestic this looked. Merrin in the back. Armitage driving. Herself in the passenger seat. As if this sort of thing happened all the time.
Which, of late, it sort of did.
Merrin noticed everything, Kara could feel it like heat.
“So,” Merrin said lightly, “how long have you known each other?”
Kara opened her mouth.
Armitage beat her to it.
“Six weeks give or take.”
Merrin hummed. “And in that time you repaired her gate, chimney and wall?”
“Yes.”
“Driven her to and from the harbour and around the island?”
“Yes.”
“Collected me from the ferry?”
“Yes… obviously.”
Kara twisted round in her seat. “Are you interviewing him?”
“Not at all. I’m clarifying the timeline. Gathering data.”
“You make me sound like a problem,” Armitage said.
“That remains to be seen.”
Armitage made a small sound in his throat that was far too close to amusement.
Kara sank lower in the passengers seat. This was a disaster. Not only was Merrin interrogating him like a civil servant with a massive grudge, she was doing it in a way that made one thing excruciatingly clear: Kara had, at some point, told her all of this. Possibly at length. Possibly more than once. Armitage now knew that.
Wonderful.
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After Kara and Armitage had dropped off her exhausted, but feisty friend at the pub, Armitage insisted on driving her home.
“She’ll text me up a storm tonight,” Kara said quietly.
“You two will have a great deal to catch up on, no doubt.”
“Yes.” She looked out the window for a moment. “I guess we will.”
“Your friend is rather different from you.”
Kara glanced at him. “Oh?”
“More to the point.”
“And that’s better, is it?” Kara asked.
The dashboard light caught the line of his jaw when he glanced at her, then back to the road. “I didn’t say that.”
It was quiet for a little while after that, the sort of quiet that didn’t feel empty so much as full of things neither of them were saying.
“Thank you for doing all of this.” Kara said at last. “I’m glad I asked.”
“So am I, Kara.”
She felt her cheeks warm.
Silence settled between them again.
“She seems to know a lot about me,” Armitage said quietly.
Kara didn’t look at him, but she could feel the heat creeping higher into her face. “Oh, well, she’s asked me about the people here. And you’ve just been… around. Helpful. Fixing things. Noticeable.” Kara said tapering off.
“Mm,” Armitage said.
Which was no help at all. Quite the opposite.
The cottage came into a view a minute later, it’s windows dark against the night until Armitage pulled up outside and the headlights swept briefly across the stone. The sea, somewhere beyond it, unseen now, only a low restless sound in the dark.
He turned off the engine.
For a second neither of them moved.
Then Kara let out a small breath and reached for the door handle. “Well. Thank you again. For today… I keep on thanking you.”
Armitage was already out of the car by the time she had her door openly properly.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she murmured, though fondly, as he came around to her side.
“It’s dark,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“It’s eight steps to my front door.”
“And?”
Kara smiled despite herself.
The wind caught at her scarf as they crossed the short path to the cottage. Armitage stayed close enough that she was aware of him without quite knowing what to do with that awareness. At the door she fumbled slightly with her keys, because basic motor skills were too much to ask of her after one brief evening with Merrin and one car ride with this man.
Armitage said nothing about it. He simply waited beside her, steady in the dark, while she finally got the key into the lock.
The door opened with a familiar little shove.
Kara turned back to him, one hand still on the handle.
“I’m sure Merrin was terrifying for one night,” she said.
One corner of his mouth moved. “I survived.”
“She’ll like you, you know.”
His expression shifted, something quieter beneath the dry amusement. “Will she?”
Kara nodded. “Yes.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then gave a small incline of his head, as if accepting that with more weight than the sentence strictly required.
“Goodnight, Kara.”
“Goodnight, Armitage.”
She stepped inside. He waited, as he always did, until she was over the threshold and the light was on.
“Text her,” he said. “Or she’ll assume I’ve buried you somewhere between the harbour and the cottage. Lock the door behind you.”
Then he nodded once and turned back toward the Land Rover.
Kara closed the door gently and stood there for a second in the warm little silence of the cottage, her heart behaving in a way she considered deeply unhelpful.
She locked the door.
Then her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She didn’t even need to look to know it was Merrin.
Kara turned her phone over in her hand and read her message.
I can see why you like him!
😏
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MUSIC FOR CHAPTER: “Flowers-Fire”
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I can’t sleep; I’m awake dreaming of a reality where fairytale love is real. I know it isn’t real; a man I loved told me so.
✖️✖️,
☙ᵳₐₗₗ❧
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“To be human is to be born into a dance in which every animate or inanimate, visible or invisible being is also dancing. Every step of this dance is printed in light; its energy is adoration, its rhythm is praise. Pain, desolution, and destruction in this full and unified sacred vision are not separate from the dance, but are instead essential energies of its transformative unfolding. Death itself cannot shatter the dance, because death is the lifespring of its fertility, the mother of all its changing splendor. If we could bring ourselves to open to this vision, we would undergo a revolution of the heart.”
― Andrew Harvey
