The girls spin around the quad like catherine wheels. I have never been a fan of children, but as the sunlight embraces the yellow stone of the college buildings, square around the carefully tended grass, I am aware that something beautiful is unfolding itself. Like a Thumbelina in jeans and t-shirt and trainers I am born in the centre of a new flower, and open unused eyes onto the scene.
   The pastor on the bench beside me waits for me to ask questions about Theology. He is not as old as I expected him to be. I am not sure why I leant so heavily on a cliché; he is young and friendly but distracted in a way I would not expect a teacher figure to be. Instead of asking me questions and filling the space with answers, he watches the two girls play and waits for me to speak in a manner which does not expect me to. I look at the parting to one side of his hair, the light playing off the strands that meet. He tells me that the girl in the white dress, Portia, was the child christened today. People speak and smile with different accents as they mill out of the church that stands strong against the left side of the quad. I watch the girls as they run across the edge of the grass, thinking that they are the only people allowed to set their feet upon it. They are too small, with their tiny white-stockinged feet, to crush the grass teeming from the earth. 
   His white collar has been pushed to one side. It says, I am off duty. Nevertheless a woman in pink with matching hat and an American accent thanks him and he smiles and nods. Without thinking, I turn and do the same. I ask some questions, attempting to retain conversation whilst still remaining aware of this moment, the way the bench and grass and old stone buildings seem to tingle beneath my skin. I know that I will write this down, that this moment will be framed by words and set on the wall inside my mind. A long gallery that stretches back to my first story when I was five. It was a page long, about a mother who lost her ducklings. I was so proud. Now I can see that it was simply a cliché, like the picture of an old, stiff man with greying hair and ironed trousers that I had held in my hands a few minutes before.
   The second girl circles the quad in a white dress kissed with red flowers. I see her black buckled shoes. Our conversation drifts in and out lazily like a wave. This man is busy. He has a wedding to perform this afternoon, and is answering my questions as a favour to my sister. I remember him. He was the pastor at her wedding. I recognized the embroidered robes that he held over one arm after the christening. He has round golden glasses. I see his buckled shoes.
   The sun begins to fade. I tell him, somewhat self-conciously, that I haven't any more questions to ask him. He nods. "That's good." I laugh. "But I want to study Theology. I thought the point was to ask questions." He says, yes, though he does not have any answers after eight years of study. I offer him an answer that has likely been used many a time before, wrapped in self-concious brown paper, tied with string: I say that answering questions is not the object of theology- the point is to keep asking them. He agrees, looks out across the quad. The stone is grey without the sun's touch. As he leads me back through the gardens, the courtyards, the staircases, I think to myself that I may never meet him again. I remember how sad it is to meet someone you know instinctively that you will like, but at the same time are aware that they will not be a part of your life. I roll the cliché around in my mind and discard it on the grass, rolling it away like a cricket ball. I can't hear the little girls' squeals any more.