If you have ever wondered about the lifespan of a bee, it is like the string of a yo-yo. I will save you the science waffle; they die when the job's done. So it follows (because a bee ain't afraid of hard work) that few die unfulfilled. They are custom-built for a singular purpose. Then it's kick back, job done, die glad. Don't feel sorry for the bee in extremis on a pavement, because that little guy has fully realised his cosmic destiny. He's fucking made it. He's not sighing over the wasted years. He won't cry about never taking that someone to bed. He is not mulling a missed opportunity in a small cathedral city and wondering why he can precisely recall the amenity of her brogues but not the essential embrace of her hands.

            There are such things as solitary bees. I imagine them with no purpose, bumbling around, collecting pollen for no reason until, so consumed with listless rage, they sting the first fucker they find, just to end the loneliness.

            and

      Talking of productivity, I'm beavering away at the only thing I ever worked on. The exact art of it is belied by your absence, but you can't say I didn't break a sweat. I still believe in some divine decryption of our language - my very own open sesame - but this archaeology is one hell of a grind. Where's my Rosetta? Schliemann proved the bones of Troy to a dubious world and famously furbished his wife in the loot. She has the look of you; inscrutable, except for a certain cowling of the eye that says she's had it with being the mail-order wife, exploited for a thousand deadly photo ops. Some say the Treasure of Priam is fake but I need to believe it's authentic. And here's Sophia, who would wear it well except for the phony, plus-size pall of all her dreadful petticoats. Me, I would unpick her from that squall and photograph her nude, holding tenderly in the lens her lived-in breasts and the natural turn of her belly. Then we'd see which treasures were undeniable.

            But, in fairness, Heinrich and Sophia seem like one heck of a team. She survived him and toured their work, giving lectures. To my mind, she definitely did this naked, arrayed only in Priam's trinkets. She likely never had to inquire as to why she had not been properly kissed on a hopeful day in a small cathedral city.

            and

     Comets can be perturbed by planets. Perturbed! Aw! Add to this that they are highly eccentric and pass gas; I mean, they're practically human. Like a fat, new baby, we behold, doe-eyed, their apparition and fix them a name tag. We crash their anniversaries, harbour certain expectations. And like humans, while many are unspectacular, others are just great. Ah, comets. Now... I need to talk to you about something. I don't want to piss on your own cosmic event but - look - you need to be prepared. Because if you're ever lucky enough to find one of the good ones, well, you're not likely to bump into each other again. Fact, man. She may be hot and wear the tail well, riding that sweet galactic tide, but she is not coming back in your lifetime. Sorry.

            Back in the day, comets were considered portents. And I wish I had known this because I would never have wasted time looking suitably sombre in the cathedral, or forcing down food or discussing something insipid as human beings. I would have put her up against the wall and spread her legs, patted her down for signs. Pulled back her eyelids and felt with fingers in her mouth. Learned by heart each and every flaw in her perfect face because I had no idea that I would leave her perturbed, even though I am only scrawny.

            and

       Language is just stating the obvious or manipulating people.

            and

       If I were to arrange myself in a display for you, I would fold my sallow knees away at the back because I'm not proud of how I've used those. My underused eyes and ears should be in better nick. The toes are pristine; I was seldom on them. My chest was never prominent but my lungs would be centrestage, always full of you as they were. Also my fingers - those that worked so hard to fold all these paper birds for you, though you likely thought them all a bit crooked and stained with piety. You cannot say my stomach would not be a good rust red, despite the feathers you have stuck in my throat. The brain would add a splat of Pollock. My genitals might make a memorable joke. Of my absent heart, I haven't the foggiest; perhaps you could check your lost property? And see, without even a microscope, my still sanguine blood, impressed as it ever was with your DNA.

            But the beard - which you once implored me wear while I kissed you - would be yours to keep under the sink. The white in it has broadened out like a ragged flag. Or perhaps like the ledger stone of something too worn-away to be revered, buried on a certain day in a certain corner of a sanctuary in a small cathedral city.