Such a moment of realisation raises questions beyond those surrounding Damien's disappearance.
Perhaps it's boredom or the realisation that any life beyond 5AM has no meaning.
As he continued to chart the course of his illness, through treatment to terminal diagnosis and beyond, there was a growing realisation among both readers and editors alike that his immense facility for language, previously expended for the most part on the smallest of domestic issues, had disguised a writer of immense talent and skill.
The Amnesty International Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year 2011 competition was literally the catalyst in the discovery of an abundance of journalistic talent at The King Edward VI School Morpeth, in Northumberland, and actually the realisation by the school, the community and beyond, that actually many of our young people know more about human rights issues than the adults.
More surprising, though, was the dawning realisation that even books set beyond the reach of that period seemed to have a significant relation with some other military standoff, as if postwar wounds were a natural driving force of the murder novel.
It was such a terrific encapsulation of a young person's realisation that there is a world beyond the one lived in – reality on the one hand, and the possibility of anything on the other.
The hot, claustrophobic horror of the body bags and the shocking realisation that people are dying just beyond our own horizon will fill all but the most fascistic viewer with a mix of guilt, unease and a desire to do something.
Whilst some programme for immediate application was necessary, really vital and radical reform required some vision beyond the immediate future, some realisation of what human beings could make out of life if they chose.
The only way, MPs believe, is for Brown to be persuaded to step down by the pressure of events and the realisation that his party is collapsing almost beyond repair.
But recently there has been a dawning realisation that the impact of intensive care extends beyond the survival of the body.
