impoverished and mentally unwell you retreat to a cabin among the welsh mountains the landscape is stunning but your hut sits at the base of a vale whose scree slopes blot out sunlight an eight mile walk to the grocer’s and pub in the nearest village only one future remains to you and its value is fast approaching zero on a starless winter night you are summoned you wade through drifts up to a raised peat bog in the hills snow here is punctuated by black ponds left where medieval peasants dug sods out flakes fall soft and frangible as your bone marrow which is the same temperature harry fainlight has been here before you questing to sever himself from the spider’s web of capital he reached a place where even now you’d struggle to find mobile phone coverage were your device not already an uncharged brick illumination is so scant that you might already be under a dark pool’s surface you lose track of the boundary between the freezing bog and your frozen blood you scan the unseen rim of hills for any light sources brighter than the dim violet of snow settling but find none the lamp in the fane has gone out
