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He has always known how to clear a room. And always relished the role of provocateur, sometimes deployed with more success than others.

As I was responsible for all communications with the hospital and the head doctor, who has always been gracious toward me, my colleagues never discovered my failure.

After a time, the famous tabletops could no longer take the abuse without permanent damage, some beyond recognition, so the owner had round plates of glass cut to fit them.

Although experience told me that while bees are unbelievably smart about so many things, they don’t have emotions in the same way we do. At least not individually. But there is such a thing as hive mentality. I’d seen hard evidence of it many times over the years.

Most of all, he’d lost solitude and a vital, unhurried connection with the natural world around him.

The first few days, we cowered in pubs and in Tube station foyers, too scared to set foot on streets that seethed with speeding vehicles and mobs of unruly, shouting people.

The curses could be heard over all their collective comm packs when this was relayed back up the chain of command.

For one insane second, he had the impossible idea of simply following her inside, taking her in his arms and demonstrating what she’d been missing.

Every time he visited, he realized that the most important parts of a human life—the emotions; the character; the experiences—were conspicuous by their absence.

She opened the stairwell door and we were inside a huge room with an oak table as long as two cars, and a long bank of floor-to-ceiling windows.