Sawyer frowns, and the flatly distrustful look is back. "Months? Years? What manner of idle nonsense is this, sir? And indeed, where I am meant to believe that you have been in the meantime? There is no place but here."

The sheer monotony of the surrounding landscape does much to confirm his statement. In a place where time seems to have no meaning, where distances are impossible to judge and where the air hangs heavy and still, the difference between one moment and the next is blurred out of all recognition.