Leonard showed me his screenplay-in-progress. It is about an ill man, who keeps getting sicker and the doctors can’t figure out why. He’s at death’s door (the title: At Death’s Door), when they discover a small alien being that has burrowed into his abdomen. That’s all Leonard had so far.

‘What’s next,’ I said.

‘That depends,’ he said.

‘On what,’ I said.

‘On if he decides to have it removed.’

‘Why wouldn’t he have it removed?’

‘I don’t know, maybe he’s gotten used to it. Maybe he likes it,’ he said, and looked at me meaningfully. We were working outside today, or ‘working’, the students spread out here and there with their laptops on the long, sloping lawn. A breeze shivered the grass down the hill, and I thought how strange it is that you can see the movement of this great, invisible thing, although maybe that’s not strange at all, and I just haven’t been paying attention to things like that. I am suddenly, horribly, alive, although that might be not having slept in almost a week. Colors assault me like loud sounds. I feel everything.