The Ultimate Twist: A Novella by Suzanne Foxton

of a country falling to pieces and felt no despair, just great peace. It wasn’t his peace. Jason told him about his Taliban pursuers, and Pervez seemed to think that in all likelihood they weren’t ghosts, but men who had heard of his infidel presence in a Muslim home and of his British nationality, and were probably hunting him as a suspected American spy. But hedrealized too that somehow, those energies must be played out. Jason wondered at the suffering of his patients, middle-class Londoners mostly, whose lives didn’t involve having their daughters raped for intimidation, who weren’t subject to military rule or fundamentalist demands that their lifestyle change beyond all recognition; the possibility that any stability they had ever known could disappear at any time was, for Londoners, unlikely. Yet their suffering was as real and intense as if they had those basic survival stresses. Life is everything, everywhere; people use whatever they have at hand. Pervez, after his long discourse on the history of Pakistan, now slumped asleep beside him. Theodore caught he eye across the aisle, smiled and waved; Jason waved back, feeling slightly ridiculous, and noted that Theo seemed in that moment not so much a renowned lifestyle guru but a small, happy child. Jason felt glad that he, Theo’s savior, had been delivered to Theo for him to rescue, a full circle, and proof that Jason was just a man. He never really rescued anyone. They were all perfect and whole, his patients; they jus