The man plonks his Tesco bag down onto the floor in front of the cupboard. A jar of pesto makes a clink as it kisses the tiles through the polythene. The front door is still open and a breeze carries in the pickup-time chatter from the school across the street.

The cat rubs its back against against the edge of the chaise longue, and meows, curiously, as if to say, “you’re home early”. It is holding its tail high, in the shape of a question mark.

The man does not respond, for he does not speak cat.

The shipment arrived on a low crate with small wheels. Five wide boxes stacked high and inelegantly wrapped in red plastic. You signed your name on the line and took them inside.

The other day I woke up in 1983. I was standing in a little green kiosk. That’s how I knew. The newspapers said 1983 on them. I gave the woman behind the counter 5 francs and she gave me one back, and I said merci, and she laughed.

The sirens sounded the same and so did the rain.

I shuffled across Pont de la Tournelle. Wrong shoes for this weather. The sky in the distance over Notre Dame was striped red and blue and yellow, and marbled with grey and black cloud. I reached for my phone to take a photo, but all I found in my pocket was a slightly damp kleenex.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I just… sort of… stood and looked at it. Up there. Throbbing. Fizzing. Undulating. Calm.

And you know what?

It looked right back.

The brick just to the right of the doorbell is mottled with three different colours of clay. It’s rough and if you look closely it glimmers with little jumbled up crystals. And there is a smattering of algae and a small crack that forks twice.

Let’s reincarnate.

We could be trees! Maybe standing next to each other in a nice forest. Just hanging out. No drama. Just treeing. You next to me and me next to you.

Maybe that’s us there! We look well. Tall. Barky.

But… what if we miss? What if we’re trees, but… I’m over here and you’re over there? It’s not always easy to put a tree in the right place… let alone two. And trees can’t just get up and walk over to each other. They are too lazy.

Maybe I’d shuffle over bit by bit over the course of a hundred years. Or if that doesn’t work I’d ask a squirrel to go check you’re safe and happy from time to time.

You lick the edge of a tin of haricot beans. Ralph watches your tongue.

“Is it Ralph or Raiph?” asks the doctor. Ralph doesn’t respond and you carry on licking the can.

The doctor, who had been looking at Ralph waiting for his response, is now also watching your tongue, which is unnerving to you given that you are looking directly him, with your eyes. Usually in such a situation either you would either both be looking at each others’ eyes or both licking a can. I guess that’s why he’s the doctor and you’re the patient. This is not a level relationship.

After a few minutes you put your tongue back into your mouth, behind your teeth and lips, which you then open again, to clarify, “It’s Ralph.”

“How many drops of rain fall on the Earth each day?” you wondered once, out loud, while sitting against the willow tree in your garden on a warm clear spring day.

I heard you and I wanted to let you know. But I hadn’t counted in a while and wanted to get it right.

I had other things to do that day. A rather troublesome volcano on my backside needed managing. I put you on my list of things to do.

You had long since turned to soil by the time I reached inbox zero. But I hadn’t forgotten. I smelled you in the petrichor. And I counted, and whispered, “Twenty-seven quintillion and three.”

Angela, who was a mouse, raised her hand.

Teacher did not notice for some time. The other students were human people. Human people who did not know the answer.

“Ahem,” said Angela. She scuttled closer to the front, stopping in between Mark and Isabelle’s desks. She put up her paw a little higher. Mark looked down, and then to Isabelle, who was busy writing a Cool S on her lined notebook. “Ahem,” piped Angela again.

Teacher, sighing, conceded, “Yes, Angela?”

“Seventy-three!” said the mouse.

“Seventy-three is not the answer.”

Angela put her paw down and sank to the floor, embarrassed, again.

Soft and slow water bunched up the blue sand of the shore like satin bed sheets. A cardinal hopped across the rippled earth and watched the sunset as she paddled in the waves.

In June 1992 I worked as a bird in a paint factory.

It was Bird Paint Inc. You know the one. You’ll remember the song. From the advert, with the birds and the paint.

It was an unusually hot summer and I wasn’t a bird. I didn’t mention it in the interview (about not being a bird) and they didn’t bring it up but I think it was obvious. I started the following day.

As far as I could tell I was the only one who wasn’t a bird. I think the other birds noticed, but no one mentioned it.