I lean back on the pillows and look at the corners of the room. When I was a kid, I always wanted to live on the ceiling - it looked so clean and uncluttered, like the top of a cake.

Dad, you played rounders with me, even though you hated it and wished I'd take up cricket. You learned how to keep a stamp collecion because I wanted to know. For hours you sat in hospitals and never, not once, complained. You brushed my hair like a mother should. You gave up work for me, friends for me, four years of your life for me. You never moaned. Hardly ever. You let me have Adam. You let me have my list. I was outrageous. Wanting, wanting so much. And you never said, 'That's enough. Stop now.

The last few weeks, it was as if someone had taken his life to pieces and let him see the way it worked.

Is this how it is for everyone?' she whispered. 'No.' 'How do you know?' 'I just do. I've never felt this with anyone before.' 'Serious?' 'Serious. That isn't a line.' 'Kiss me,' she said. He did. Everywhere.

Three points for the dead slowly prising open the lids of their coffins. They want to hunt the living. They can't stop. Their throats have turned to liquid and their fingers glint under the weak autumn sun.

That slow smile again. I love that smile! DId I think he was ugly just now? No, his face is transformed.

If I learnt anything at all about terminal illness in my research, it's that the experience is different for everyone. I do believe that life becomes concentrated when it's boundaried and that death is the biggest boundary of all.