"once, i lived in the desert. the sands blew, parching my eyes and throat. i worked all day among the skull rocks, trying to make the cracked earth yield something green. i dreamed of flowers - i had heard tales of mute creatures shaped like stars that came up from the ground, featureless faces, colours i hardly believed in. sometimes when the heart sizzled, i saw them - these flowers - burning in the distance, a shimmer of green and the startling cool sheen of water. this is what my children will have, i told myself. but they will not just see it beckoning before them while their their throats ache with dryness. the water will shine over their bodies, will fill their mouths. they will lose themselves in flowers and eat fruits that drop into their hands. they will spend their days performing on a stage of meadow grasses, behind curtains of willow trees, surrounded by the white swans, horses, wildcats and butterflies like loosened flowers - all these that are only stories now. that is where my children belong. they will have everything."