They bickered happily. I was pleased by them: Annie’s energetic creation paired with Colson’s blend of making and paranoia. It made for an excellent team. For myself, I wondered if I had taken on too much. I’d been prepared for technicalities. I had not considered that I would be asked to grapple with philosophy of self. Annie had been right, though, that the mysteries of the machine would not long remain obscure to me, and by the end of the month I was using the in-house messaging system quite freely. I still insisted on communicating by post as well, because I found a qualitative difference in the opinions of others depending on the medium in which they were conveyed. Colson, in particular, I insisted write his comments on paper, which I think was the most shocking thing he’d ever had to do in his—to me—rather short life. His electronic responses were terse to the point of thoughtless, but his written ones were quirky and energetic, and he quickly got rather fond of the whole business of stamps and handwriting and started to respond to my sketches with little postcards he bought from a newsagent down the road from the office. YES! MORE! I LOVE IT! RIGHT ANGLES! he wrote once, on the back of a truly horrible picture of the Queen. I kept that one, because it had a fierce joy in it, and an unexpected eccentricity that pleased me no end. There’s nothing better in the professional life of an artist than the moment of seeing one’s work kindle in someone that look of enlightened obsession. He told me later that it started when he bought a fountain pen and the scratch of nib on paper awoke in him the same fruitful concentration as working with his hands.