Hold my hand. Don't let go.

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

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.

when I was four I almost fell down the shaft of a tin mine and when I was five the car rolled over on the motorway and when I was seven we went on holiday and the gas ring blew out in the caravan and nobody noticed I've been dying all my life

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

Are you afraid, Tessa?

And now he's down this for me. He's made me famous. He's put my name on the world.