On the Saturday my friend dived into his beloved surf for the last time I was closeted away on Canberra’s limestone plains, landlocked, writing. Over the Christmas break I’d fully disconnected, hoping to gather some thoughts about where journalism had landed, or failed to land, after ten years of constant change, and then massage them into publishable form. That weekend was the last big push to get the words right.

When I left my desk and plugged back into the world, the messages were there: emails, voicemails, bringing the news that Mick Gordon had gone into the surf and, inexplicably, hadn’t made it out. I blinked at the words, struggling to comprehend their meaning. I rang the messengers, one by one, that terrible catch in our voices, the halting words and the silence. Everyone, sadly, has had this experience—a death for which there is no warning. A shadow brushes past you, chilling you through, a grim reminder that everything is temporal, particularly the things that trick you by feeling the most certain.