as i go into the school hall, i know my three friends, one of whom i'm related to, are going to stab me in the back. i put my hand to the small of my back in preparation for the blow. as the three knives go in they each hurt me in slightly different ways. my back feels as though it is a gaping hole, empty and weak.

they leave me there for dead, bleeding all over the floor. but i'm not dead, and somehow manage to pull myself up and stagger zombie-like to a top floor flat in brooklyn where my now much-more-than-usual italian mother makes me a cup of tea. i have to hide under a table in the living room when the mafia friends that stabbed me come over to lie to her about what happened. i could fight, but i am still weak, and i cannot go to a doctor or they will find me. i say goodbye to my parents forever and tell them i can never contact them without putting them in danger so i just won't.

later, when i get more strength, i go to a restuarant in town and find angela lansbury and tell her everything that happened and she says "well, you know... in your position my dear, what i would really do is run, as far as you can go." i decide not to run away, however, and as i leave the room i open a fake door which is 30 stories up and i drop down to the ground. the city is a rabbit hole, and i feel my wounds shrink into painless scars the size of paperclips.

jess and i are at sea, on a grey day, and the weather is bad so we realise we're not going to make it home. i leave her and decide to go into space, but i have to go to a preliminary meeting first. At this meeting someone sees a small alien, the Sigourney Weaver variety, which I recognise from the film and proceed to tell everyone we should kill it. Everyone is apathetic, not wanting to be shown up in front of the others. Eventually I get a portly policeman to help me scorch it, except unfortunately it manages to get away at the last minute. It gets lost in the crowd, the policeman shrugs, and I go over to a group of the mission potentials and say: this mission is doomed, you know, we'll all come back with aliens inside us. The others say they don't mind though - (aren't aliens caught by sharing saliva anyway? we can avoid that) - they just want to go into space even if it kills them. (It WILL kill them) Ah, I say. Well I'll leave you to it then. The whole affair feelt thoroughly english as I walked away.