We write to a deadline, we drive to Town and back, we run around rehearsing the next play, we listen to the news, we bake sweets, we take the cat at the vet’s and discuss geopolitics in the waiting room, we watch from the window the first wood-pigeon drinking in the pond – back from wherever it is they go to winter – we hunt for that one missing prop, we listen to more news, we worry about friends over there – who live with their bags packed up in the hall, ready to run at a moment’s notice – and we wonder how all this will read in history books, a century or two from now. We write on, we muse on crumbling empires, we marvel at the flowers of an early spring, we go through rehearsing schedules on the phone, we shake our heads in disbelief at the TV set, we hire on for big translation jobs, we frankly have no idea what will happen next, we go on writing, and we just can’t help the thought: by the time the deadline comes, what will the world look like?