Content Warning: This section of the guide contain references to incest.

Claudia Hampton is an ailing, elderly woman. She is in the hospital, being treated for cancer, and is near death. As a nurse attends to her, Claudia tells the nurse that she is “writing a history of the world” (1). Claudia drifts in and out of consciousness, occasionally speaking a few words.

The nurse asks a doctor who Claudia is, and he tells her that Claudia has written many books and articles and that she spent some time in the Middle East.

Claudia thinks to herself that she doesn’t want to write a linear history, because lived experience is more personal and “kaleidoscopic” than that. Claudia reflects on her childhood and her early relationship with her brother, Gordon.

Claudia recalls searching for ammonite fossils on a beachside cliff face with her brother when she was 10. Driven by her competitiveness, she falls from a cliff ledge. The narrative shifts briefly to Claudia’s mother’s perspective when Claudia accuses Gordon of pushing her.

Claudia then recalls visiting the Ashmolean Museum with Jasper, her off-and-on again partner. Claudia was 37 or 38 at the time.