“I lost my job because they took on Polish workmen who were much cheaper.”

Oh, so lonely. So lonely in fact that a living part of me is missing. Strain your imagination. Perhaps you can imagine a bacterial amoeba robbed of a string of cells, or a new-born mollusc whose shell is too soft – like the damaged egg from which it emerged. Or perhaps you picture now a little vole, cute as can be, except he was born without fur. Can you imagine what it is to be born under an unholy omen? Then think of a baby without a mother, perhaps whose mother died in childbirth – nature cutting off everything – the past itself - from this baby with the snip of the scissors through the umbilical cord.