We walked, still young, beneath the tall trees and the forest’s soft rustling. The moonlight made ponds out of the clearings that sprang into view along our aimless path, and their branch-tangled shores were more night than the night itself. The breeze of woodlands sighed among the trees. We talked about impossible things, and our voices were part of the night, the moon and the forest. We heard them as if they belonged to others.

The obscure forest wasn’t entirely pathless. Our steps wended along trails that we instinctively knew, among dappling shadows and streaks of cold, hard moonlight. We talked about impossible things, and the whole of that real-life landscape was just as impossible.