“Watching Sophie with her breath misting the inside of the translucent green breathing mask. There was a terrible acceleration. The idea that Sophie could die had always been there, ever since the first diagnosis, and yet it had seemed like a bad place on the map, an Ivory Coast, somewhere not urgently frightening because fear itself kept you away from the place. You thought of it as somewhere braver people went, or at least somewhere you’d have plenty of time to pack your bags for. And yet here he was, suddenly in his tracksuit, with the housekeys, the car key, his phone, and five pounds seventy-three in the pockets watching Sophie do something that might be dying. This was the nature of time: it was a wide, elegant and gently descending spiral staircase whose last dozen steps were unexpectedly rotten. “
Chris Cleave “Gold”, 2012, Simon & Schuster
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 