Crickets—or maybe cicadas. He couldn’t be bothered to find out which critters were ruining a perfectly good late-summer morning at the chateau. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to write about them, and if he ever did… well, he could just make it up. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The south of France was the perfect place to write and be written about. Summer here carried a certain gravitas—a sense that each day mattered in the way a comma does in a sentence. Important in the moment, yet so easily lost in the totality of the story.

David lingered by the pool. Officially, the writer’s retreat had been filled with lectures and dinner parties—on paper, at least. In truth, it was little more than a glorified holiday. He had let the group go on without him long ago, content to observe from the sidelines, waiting for something interesting to happen. He called it people-watching. In reality, it was just being a loner with better PR.

The chateau was big enough to get lost in. The poolside bar was little more than a shack, but it was well-stocked, which was what mattered. And the nearest village had just enough entertainment to keep ennui at bay. All in all, it was shaping up to be a rather excellent month of doing nothing at all.

He leaned back on the deck chair, letting the sun soak into his skin. Some Hemingway novel lay open beside him, acting as a coaster for a glass of cold white wine. It was all chaos if one looked too closely. The wine too close to the edge, the book too close to being ruined. But he simply closed his eyes and soaked in the Mediterranean sun as though all was fine.