It Was The Day My Grandmother Exploded.

I Just Took [my Cancer Diagnosis] As Bad Luck, Basically. It Did Strike Me Almost Immediately, My Atheist Sort Of Thing Kicked In And I Thought "ha, If I Was A God-botherer, I'd Be Thinking, Why Me God? What Have I Done To Deserve This?" And I Thought At Least I'm Free Of That, At Least I Can Simply Treat It As Bad Luck And Get On With It.

All Our Lives Are Symbols. Everything We Do Is Part Of A Pattern We Have At Least Some Say In. The Strong Make Their Own Patterns And Influence Other People's, The Weak Have Their Courses Mapped Out For Them. The Weak And The Unlucky, And The Stupid.

But It Was Pointless, It Was Stupid; He Thought About Thoughtless Things. If I Were A Seabird . . . But How Could You Be A Seabird? If You Were A Seabird Your Brain Would Be Tiny And Stupid And You Would Love Half-rotted Fish Guts And Tweaking The Eyes Out Of Little Grazing Animals; You Would Know No Poetry And You Could Never Appreciate Flying As Fully As The Human On The Ground Yearning To Be You. If You Wanted To Be A Seabird You Deserved To Be One.

Stories Set In The Culture In Which Things Went Wrong Tended To Start With Humans Losing Or Forgetting Or Deliberately Leaving Behind Their Terminal. It Was A Conventional Opening, The Equivalent Of Straying Off The Path In The Wild Woods In One Age, Or A Car Breaking Down At Night On A Lonely Road In Another.

Mr Blawke Always Reminded Me Of A Heron; I'm Not Sure Why. Something To Do With A Sense Of Rapacious Stillness, Perhaps, And Also The Aura Of One Who Knows Time Is On His Side.