I was, and am, acutely aware that life is ephemeral,
limited and brief. I never wake up in the morning withoutbeing surprised at being alive: I never go to sleep withoutwondering whether I shall wake up. Death to me was thereality. Yet everybody I met and saw seemed unaware ofit. They seemed to live as if they would live forever. Howelse could they spend forty years marking exercise-books,
going to an office to earn the money which would enablethem to go on going to an office which would enable themto go on going to an office-I could see a skull beneathevery bowler hat. ... I was obsessed with the feeling that Iwas a small boat floating on an ocean, and the ocean wasdeath.
RONALD DUNCAN, ALL MEN ARE ISLANDS