Then abruptly I’m afraid again, like lighting a taper. It starts as something a little like rationality: perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps I’ve made myself logistically problematic in someone’s great game, a deal of provinces and property and trade. It wouldn’t be unknown for a merchant to poison a well to drive out the people and pick up land on the cheap. But it’s not that. This isn’t anything real, it’s a bad ghost on my back. There’s a draught coming from somewhere. My skin is tingling. My mind helpfully conjures images of ants crawling over me, up under the lip of the sack, into my clothes. Ants. Spiders. Snakes. And: what’s that noise?