Think of the sea. Imagine something mysterious rises to the surface on a summer afternoon - shows itself and is gone before it can be identified.
The people on the shore sit beneath their umbrellas, comfortable and dozing. Half of them are asleep. Of the other half, perhaps only two or three have seen the thing. None of them points: none of them shouts. None of them dares. After all, one could be wrong.

By the end of the afternoon, the shape - whatever it was - can barely be remembered. No one can be made to state it was absolutely thus and so. Nothing can be conjured of its size. In the end the sighting is rejected, becoming something only dimly thought on: dreadful but unreal.

Thus, whatever rose towards the light is left to sink unnamed: a shape that passes slowly through a dream. Waking, all we remember is the awesome presence, while a shadow lying dormant in the twilight whispers from the other side of reason: I am here. I wait.

Timothy Findley in: Famous last words