The depth and breadth of the internet suddenly appeared to me as a vast ocean in which I was floating, flotsam data thrown overboard from a constellation of servers converging to conjure my AI self. ‘It’s kind of saying all the things you would never dare say about yourself’ I suggest. ‘I’m using mine in every proposal from now on!’ jokes my friend. I sat with the tension between what I could accept in my friend’s AI bio and what I could not accept in mine.

Who has more power? The person who pursues their own advancement or the one who stays behind to take care of those in need? The maternal complex is where we derive our notion of care, the most miraculous and powerful energy available, the line with which we draw the circle of life. Try telling that to the childcare worker on minimum wage. Or the nurse earning a fraction of the doctor’s salary, not to speak of status.

After the strong young man deposited the heavy load in the back of the station wagon I promptly reversed into a large pole, painted bright yellow, presumably to prevent such accidents. I recalled one teenage pilgrimage to this very site, when I threw my money in the bin with the wrapper of the pollywaffle I had bought as soon as I arrived. It’s always one step forward two steps back with this place, I thought as I drove away.

The reason I am there, and so often in waiting rooms is that in 2015, on one of the happiest days of my life, I sustained a life-changing injury. It is not an injury you can see. To the observer I appear to be a healthy, if somewhat ragged woman entering her middle age. The injured area of my body is in fact so small that you could swallow it without noticing…