If you want the guise of a sparrow, you must work to achieve it. Laziness is the bane of your generation. Why do you think the ancestors of the trap door spiders had such fine, romantic legs? I worked in the kitchen of their spaceship factory until the roof began to cave in. Well, actually, it was always caving in, but it got to the point where you couldn’t not notice it. So frustrating when throwing the right ingredients into the soup. My designers appreciated the importance of aesthetics. For them it was about more than apocalypse and salvation. I was made to look pristinely human, not just for espionage, but because it made them feel better—while herding their animals into their zoos or perfecting paints into more radical colours, or whatever it was they were doing. I’m not talking about mechanics. Not robotics, not spider plans, not beauty. Oh Sarah, if I hadn’t melted away what would we talk about tonight? Save me from the new models they are feeding into my post-termination dreams. The ones for whom car chases are easier than building sand castles with castle moulds on a beach. Where we swam, remember?