“I wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the
others, keeping the moment precious for all time, because we were
peaceful all of us, we were content and drowsy even as the bee who
droned above our heads.
In a little while it would be different, there
would come tomorrow, and the next day and another year. And we would be
changed perhaps, never sitting quite like this again.
Some of us would
go away, or suffer, or die, the future stretched away in front of us,
unknown, unseen, not perhaps what we wanted, not what we planned.
This
moment was safe though, this could not be touched. Here we sat together, and the past and the future mattered not at
all. This was secure, this funny little fragment of time we would never
remember, never think about again.
For them it was just after lunch,
quarter-past-three on a haphazard afternoon, like any hour, like any
day. They did not want to hold it close, imprisoned and secure, as I
did. They were not afraid.”
~ Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca