I’m like a teenager in that I always leave a trail of stuff behind me, whether it’s empty teacups or records not put back in their sleeves – just stuff in piles everywhere that never gets dealt with. So I reckon I’d have a massive tidy-up. I’d do all the DIY stuff that I’ve been promising to do for the last couple of years – I’d put the shelf back up in the bedroom, fill the hole in the wall in the landing, and I might mow the lawn if the weather’s alright… Basically all the stuff that annoys my wife I’d deal with, so I can make sure my legacy wasn’t a load of mess and unfinished jobs. Oh, and I’d take some prawns out of the freezer as well.

I would need a terrible lot of cash because I’d have to go and give all the tramps that come off the beach and the homeless, leave lots of cash bundles because they sleep in the doorways, it’s terribly sad. Then I’ll rush home and tidy everything up and throw away all my old clothes and old shoes and take them down to the charity shop. It’s going to be very satisfying.

I guess I would wake up, have breakfast with my children. Then I’d go to the studio and make the best record of my life, and then have a lot of sex! That sounds pretty balanced, I think!

I’d look for the mad amusement park on the base of Mount Fuji and take a few rides in there, and then whisk myself off very, very, very quickly on a jet cos it’s gonna be a long day. I’m thinking of getting stuck up in the Himalayas, but then that just gives me another mountain and you’re gonna think I’m a bit of a mountain freak. Where would I go? Not the pyramids! I’d like to get a plane from Japan to Petra in Syria, which is a little city that’s in the desert; it’s quite famous, it’s all made out of sand, like carved out of the desert. While I’m flying I’d like to catch up on the last few books of Philip K. Dick, then I’d come to my flat in London for lunch, say my goodbyes to my dear friends and family, pick up my two children and leave. I’d steal a tank and drive it up to Heathrow. I wouldn’t mind giving my girlfriend one in the middle of Parliament Square whilst shouting out, ‘It’s in the name of art!’ Then I’d nick a Concorde and fly to Arizona whilst having a wet shave and a top massage.

So many times I’ve wondered what might have happened to me if I had lost my legs, or even just my right one, where my first melanoma appeared two or three years later. If I’d just been a second slower stepping away from the car, I might not be dying now. I’d be legless, of course, but still in good health. Of these fateful forks in the road are our lives made up. We are all just a millimetre away from death, all of the time, if only we knew it.

And of course, I wonder why I was not more vigilant about checking my skin, because if I had been, I would have picked up that first melanoma before it turned bad, and saved myself a lot of heartache. When I was first diagnosed, I was angry with myself for being too lazy and stupid to bother with anything but the occasional quick examination. But then I decided that kind of thinking was a waste of my time, because we start dying the moment we are born. I know that now. The knowledge has changed from a first illuminating but soon forgotten premonition into an undeniable lived reality.

How many times I could have died before now, and in how many different ways. And yet I came close only once: a speeding sedan ran a red light, hit three other vehicles, and jack-knifed into my rear wheel split second after I’d stepped out of my parked car. A bystander described the scene to me later. “You were a millimetre away from losing your legs,” he said.

He’s always been the family cook. He’s been feeding me since the day we met. Everything I know about Japanese food I know because of him. So now that’s another pleasure gone, perhaps the greatest. I don’t know how long it takes to die of starvation, or whether it hurts, but I dread it, just as I dread my sons watching me go like that. Because that is what they will remember, their mother reduced to a bag of bones. What it will do to Shin I can’t bear to contemplate.

As far as I can tell, I’ll either succumb to some opportunistic infection, for which I’ve refused antibiotics in advance, or, having similarly declined forced feeding, I’ll starve to death. ... I don’t know how long it takes to die of starvation, or whether it hurts, but I dread it, just as I dread my sons watching me go like that. Because that is what they will remember, their mother reduced to a bag of bones.