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Nadia regards me a moment before speaking.
‘Are you a banana?’ she asks.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Are you a banana?’ she asks again, with no hesitation and not a hint of a smile.
‘No,’ I say, ‘I am not a banana.’
‘Right,’ she says, ‘good. That’s good.’
She pauses a moment, as though deep in thought.
‘What if you thought you were a banana? Would that make you a banana?’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I would be a human who thinks she’s a banana.’
‘Okay, good to know,’ says Nadia, like I’ve just given her the answer to a puzzle that’s been bothering her for ages.

…no matter how much I learned about death, she’d still be gone and I’d still be grieving – and so, having rejected religion at a young age, I suddenly found myself wishing for the comfort blanket that is faith.
I wanted to be able to blindly believe in something that might make me feel better, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I feel much the same about the Church as I do about dead bodies – that they can both provide consolation, but only if you’re willing to ignore some harsh truths. I find no more comfort from whispering in a dead person’s ear than I do from whispering to a made-up God in the dark. Though sometimes I envy the fools who can.

I know that my purpose on this planet is to make a child of my own, and that we are all programmed to procreate, but while men are meant to spread their seed, women are just walking, talking incubators. Which may sound flippant, but really I’m rather in awe of it all. A woman can manufacture inside of her another whole human being, with its own thoughts and fears and tiny toenails. I have the ability to create life, and from a young age, my body has been preparing itself for that eventuality; my boobs, my hips, my monthly mood swings, they’re all just part of The Plan. Capital T. Capital P.