Keep breathing. Just keep doing it. It's easy. In and out.

I shrug him off. 'Can't you just go away?" There's a moment. It has a sound in it, as if something very small got broken.

All I know is that I have two choices – stay wrapped in blankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living.

Every seven years our bodies change, every cell. Every seven years, we disappear.

I didn't understand that when you make love, you actually do MAKE love. Stir things. Affect each other. The breath that escapes from me is dazzled. He breathes it in with a gasp.

I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I get lonely? I promise not to scare you.

I imagine horses in the engine, their manes flying, their breaths steaming, their nostrils flaring as they gallop.