f4f3 | Somebody asked me

“What are you most afraid of?”

I think I’m most afraid of bad things happening to those I love. I’m not particularly afraid of bad things happening to me – if they’re bad enough to kill me, I’ll be dead, and if I’m not dead then I’ll work out a way to deal with them. I remember going through a period in my pre-teens of thinking “What if I go blind?”, “What if I can’t walk?” “What if I was completely paralysed and couldn’t move a finger?” (this was a particularly common scenario in my imaginings). And then I realised that there were blind people, people who couldn’t walk, or talk, or hear, and that they seemed to be getting on with life ok. (At that time no one had written a book by blinking his eye, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had). So I think, and hopefully I will never have to be tested on that.

But bad things happening to others, and my being powerless to help, that scares me.

Oh, and asparagus.