I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death

by Maggie O'Farrell

I turn and run, he could catch up with me in seconds and there would be something so exposing, so final about running.

If, as a child, you are struck or hit, you will never forget that sense of your own powerlessness and vulnerability, of how a situation can turn from benign to brutal in the blink of an eye, in the space of a breath. That sensibility will run in your veins, like an antibody.

Travelling at speed, thousands of feet above ground, in the cabin of an aircraft, induces an altered state of mind. Things that may have been puzzling you perhaps come into focus, as if the lens of a camera has been twisted. You may find, sliding into your mind, answers to questions that have long eluded

you.

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