They sat in a tent. There was no fire but it was warm enough inside.

“What is loneliness?” she looked up and asked.

“Existential naivety,” he replied.

“What about aloneness instead? Can’t aloneness be beautiful?”

“Of course, if you see that it’s an illusion,” he said.

“How is it an illusion?” she protested.

“Because anything which we perceive but doesn’t exist is its working definition,” he replied calmly.

“But how do you mean aloneness doesn’t exist?” she objected defiantly.

“Aloneness means only you exist, does it not?”

“Decidedly.”

“That means you and aloneness both can’t exist at the same time. And you do exist, don’t you?

She stepped out of the tent and looked at the elephant standing in the wind-tousled grass against the lap of a retiring sun, and she had the society of silence.