The theme of Topkapi is seclusion. A graduating depth of shadows. Deeper shades of obscuring darkness. Privacy nestled within privacy like Russian dolls, visible in the layers of courtyards and iridescent tiled chambers. Each layer of rooms contained its own household of secrets that transcended and included the rooms that surrounded it. Only those at the centre knew all.

The theme of Cappadocia is Seclusion and Fear. Isolated by its arid emptiness, its people sought further seclusion by digging vast cities deep under the ground. They tunneled to escape invasion, military recruitment, and puritanical government attempts to control the distillation of raki. The rock is threaded by rooms in which thousands of people could live for 4 or 5 months without ever coming out. I wonder if they forgot the sky?

One evening Colin and I hiked up Cave Hill to take in Belfast at stereoscopic scale. On our way back to town, we paused to slake our thirst at a pub called The Front Page. It’s close proximity to the offices of the Belfast Telegraph and Irish News had reputedly made it a hangout for journalists and newspaper workers. While I tend to avoid other writers, Colin, a photojournalist by profession, wanted to take the political pulse of the city.

Church of St. Sara in Ste-Marie-de-la-Mer, The Camargue, France

The chapel was bathed in cool subterranean light, filtered through high window slits as though between lily pads into the chthonic depths of a pond. Sitting in a pew, I felt as though I had drowned. The faint sound of religious music piped through hidden speakers became the Music of the Spheres, the sound of my consciousness as it fled my drowned body. All was stillness and shafts of light.