When someone is convicted of murder, rape, or another heinous crime, there is always a degree of shock involved.

"How could they bring themselves to do that?"

This morning, I sat on the balcony of my apartment in Cefalù overlooking the turquoise water.

Down on the rocks below, a German couple were performing some strange sequence of stretches combined with whole-body tapping. Almost like ancient aura farming.

The husband kept one eye on his wife's movements, making sure he stayed in sync.

As they danced, I wondered whether they'd always been like this.

Or whether something had happened.

From his wandering eye, I suspected it had been the wife who started it.

Maybe she had used these rituals to overcome cancer. Maybe something else entirely.

Whatever the reason, there was a sincerity to it.

Performing this strange sequence on the rocks at 6:30 in the morning, in full view of the locals and the occasional tourist, suggested they believed in it.

Not because they wanted to be seen.

But because they no longer thought of themselves as being seen.

This was just what they did.

"Action."

I was working as a production runner on Falling for Figaro, learning the strange interplay between departments.

Everything felt chaotic. Departments clashed constantly, and I found myself in the unfamiliar position of being both the new guy and, somehow, the emotional bridge.

The rehearsal began.

And in the space between "action" and "cut", I realised something.

What we were witnessing was live.

It was happening right now.

Although scripted, Danielle and Hugh were no longer the people I'd shared a car ride with.

Those people had gone quiet.

For a few moments, someone else held the wheel.

I remember a scene from The Sopranos.

Two men have been tasked with an assassination.

Eventually they feed the poor man to the pigs.

But if you zoom in, the killing itself isn't one thing.

It's a sequence.

Pack a knife.

Pick up a colleague.

Drive somewhere.

Distract the victim.

Approach from behind.

Grab his neck.

Move your hand.

Plug in the bone saw.

None of these actions are the thing.

Each step is small enough to do without flinching.

Nobody suddenly becomes a killer.

That is the wrong verb.

It assumes a man standing at the edge of himself, deciding whether or not to jump.

But there is no edge.

There is only the next event.

And then the next.

You do not become a killer.

You finish a sequence.

The Germans didn't decide to become the people tapping on rocks at 6:30 in the morning.

They tapped once.

Maybe it helped.

Maybe it didn't.

The wife continued.

The husband followed.

A thousand mornings later, there they were.

Sincere.

Public.

Just who they are now.

Danielle and Hugh didn't leap into character.

They stood on their marks.

Said the lines.

And gradually the people from the car ride disappeared into the background.

We talk about change as though it is a door.

Before on one side.

After on the other.

As though some version of you walks through and emerges transformed.

But it isn't a door.

It's a corridor.

And you only realise you've been walking it when you turn around and can no longer see where you started.

You and I are already inside it.

Mid-stride.

Mid-sequence.

Becoming something neither of us consciously agreed to.

I don't know where I'm walking.

That was never the frightening part.

The frightening part is this:

I won't feel the moment it happens.

Because there isn't one.

Only the next step.

And then the next.

Thanks again for reading,
Grant