in rehearsal for chekhov’s ‘the cherry orchard’ tonight, i was seized, for the first time, by an absolute, paralyzing fear of dying. trofimov argues, ‘maybe human beings have a hundred senses, and at the time of death only five actually perish, the five that we know of. maybe the remaining ninety-five senses continue to function.’ and in that moment i was hit by what seemed like an absolute certainty that it wasn’t true. that our consciousness is no more than the happy circumstance of the pathways between neurons, and that it will one day go out, like a light into the dark.

for those who believe otherwise, is it a similar moment of realisation, not a compression in fear but an expansion, outward, into the world? that seems quite nice.