I am reminded that once I was truly scared of the black smooth head of the alien from Riddley Scott’s film. I thought about it emerging from the side of my bed, its head knocking hollow against the wooden bed frame and the wall. Or I imagined it would be stood in the bedroom doorway in the middle of the night; maybe I would turn over in bed and there it would be, massive and lank, standing black on static grey. Turning slowly its head. And I would be frozen with fear in my bed, silent, paralyzed, and tingling all over thinking about it. I swear I could feel a cold tension right in the pours of my skin. A feeling not unlike, now, the night before a dreaded interview or a first day at work. Or a confrontation about something which you know has to be said. I feel so extremely weak when I’m in bed and I need to get to sleep – and I’m just asking myself and the static grey: can’t we just do this now? because I’m awake now, let’s just do it at 2:15 in the middle of the night. And I feel weak because I realise that I used to feel so tense and cold when I thought of a lank black dripping carapace standing in the doorway, not a human conversation. Although, admittedly, I never had to meet that carapace the next day, nor sit in a room with it and answer its questions regarding my suitability.