She laid still on the grass and squinted through half-closed eyes at passing clouds. She didn't jump when a voice suddenly spoke somewhere behind her.
"You always had a problem running with other people."
She didn't respond.
"I remembered when you were young, there was an incident where your teacher asked the whole class to run round the field. You wouldn't obey, cos you couldn't tell the difference between running round a field and running round anything else. So she punished you and made you run round a bush."
"No, it was a tree," she corrected him softly, but still she didn't move.
"And there was the time when a girl in your class cried cos she had run too slow. You couldn't understand why she bothered comparing herself to other people, as long as she ran well. So you stopped running and walked instead in protest. The other children were upset that you didn't bother to run, and ran alongside you, trying to pull you along in their wake. You didn't budge."
"Yes," she said.
She could hear him sigh. Then he spoke again.
"Want an apple?"