“As the eye of narrative drew back from the coffin on its stand, two things happened. One happened comparatively slowly, and this was Vargo's realisation that he never recalled the coffin having a pillow before.The other was Greebo deciding that he was as mad as hell and wasn't going to take it any more.”

“I wasn't going to let things happen to me any more. I was going to make them happen.”

“Why had he done it? Why couldn't it just not have happened? Why didn't they have time-travel, why couldn't he go back and stop it happening? Ships that could circumnavigate the galaxy in a few years, and count every cell in your body from light-years off, but he wasn't able to go back one miserable day and alter one tiny, stupid, idiotic, shameful decision...”

“Hey.” He glanced away from her, instead looking down at the coffin. He looked back at her and raised his eyebrows. “Want a peek?”

“They held hands and knew that only the coffin would lie in the earth; the bubbly laughter and the press of fingers in the palm would stay aboveground forever. At first, as they stood there, their hands were clenched together. They relaxed slowly until during the walk back home their fingers were laced in as gentle a clasp as that of any two young girlfriends trotting up the road on a summer day wondering what happened to butterflies in the winter.”

“But Spencer is here, after all. He stands at the back, just outside his office. “What happened?” he asks.My eyes burn from the pelting rain and the salt of my tears. “It’s raining,” I say, as if it weren’t completely obvious.“And you decided to lay out in it?”