What else is there to say? One slips into the years of one’s earliest existence by what seems to be, by what seems to have been, an utterly unique side-door. Yes. The real, rare Universe really starting up at last! And only decades later (if at all) does it strike one, with perhaps such a casual shock, that even the Universe of all these complexedly existing beings has originated in no more than a vast, chaotic collection of just such loosely inter-connected, intertwined side-doors, such almost secret entrances opening and closing, broadly together in general choreography, but hardly unified within any specifically shared principle – (mere survival as such?) – for everyone in this latest overwhelmingly unknown crowd too, whoever they may more particularly be.

And how many of them, for instance – at a guess, presumably bizimillions – how many of them might not at this more or less same moment as mine (as it happens) be permitting their attentions to ricochet through some trash- or treasure-filled drawer – this time actively searching for God knows what, if anything – only to stumble (dippity!) across (somewhere among all those, what, those usable but decommissioned keys, ripped-off buttons, guarantees and instruction booklets for long-since superseded domestic appliances, and batteries which no doubt still have a fair bit of life left in them (probably not all of it? (what? all of life? (rather more than I can claim for myself!))) – and what’s this next? – hmm: well, to be specific in one case at ...