They lay on the bed as though washed up on the shingle after the storm had abated, staring at the ceiling-sky, trying to recapture their bearings. They had yet to discover where the tempest had delivered them; what strange and foreign land they had now to navigate. That information may take some time to become clear.

The night had swept them on a wild and unnerving journey, each tossed away from the other and then thrown back together again with ghastly force. With the cold light of day, eventually, slowly, they turned to look at one another, shell-shocked and numb, eyes wide with horror, puzzlement and a strange sense of relief that it was over.

Little by little they began to shuffle into the day, bleary-eyed and shattered, smiling too politely, too readily, their gazes sloping off into the middle-distance. The solution, the path to safety, was disconcertingly elusive.

Where was the blueprint? The map of this uncharted country? What course should they set for asylum?

The answer arrived with the morning post: look to the stars.