I followed their advice.

I bought 400 pairs of socks, 200 of tights, and a box of stockings. I bought slipper socks, too, just in case.

I got a giant winged armchair, of green leather, brass-studded. Six deckchairs in striped Scarborough canvas. I bought in enough barstools to host a brawl. Fancy ones, mind, so only fancy brawls. With polite put-downs rather than broken teeth. A booster seat for the car. An old dusty sofa. I’ll do it up.

When I asked them what was the best thing to do with the inheritance, they told me, and I listened. Socks and chairs, they said. Invest in socks and chairs. So I did.

She scrapes snow off her soles and onto the grate. She peels off both shoes together, one with each hand. She hits them against each other. Little cold beads escape from the rubber heels.

Inside smells like a heater that hasn’t been turned on in a long time. It’s all the bits of dust, fragments of hair, clothing, skin, that have settled on the filaments, suddenly finding themselves cooked. The smell of old, burning skin. She sets her sack by the mantel in the front room.

Little Otter, nestled among the hedgerose and gnawing on the fuzz of morning, paints eggs to sell today, to earn money, to buy crack and meth.

Her mother would have cried had she known. But what did Mrs. Otter know? A PhD in woodland politics? So out of touch.

Beaver, beside otter, hasn’t moved since yesterday. Hope he’s not dead, thinks Little Otter. She wipes the crystals from her nose fur, and reaches for the blue.

“Where did the night go?” You ask.

“It’s under your shoe.” I suggest. You lift the sole, the white rubber giggles brightly through the marbled mud and April dew.

“Nope, not under there!”

The sun has come to help us look for it. He’s put his shoes on and his fluffy coat, his hand to his brow as he scours to the West. “I think I see it!” he murmurs gently, to the starling’s cheer. On the peeling green bench, we sit, you take my hand, and we watch our friend chase his into tomorrow.

The next day arrives early for me. I unwrap myself from the sheets, sit and pause for a moment on the side of the bed, adjusting to the faded blueish hints of sunrise sneaking out from the top of the dark, thick curtains. I wander over and draw them open quietly. There is no sound here.

I slip my new trainers on without socks, and throw on yesterday’s clothes to venture out. To the south is a congregation of tree stumps, remnants of the forest hurriedly chopped to help with the rebuilding. Golden crests line each stump: chicken-of-the-woods grown for food, of the kind the old woman had served for us last night, albeit disguised in a thick carbonara. I set myself down on the front step and savour the dew.

It’s eight minutes past seven. She’s late. I pull out my phone to check for missed calls. Nothing. I look around anxiously between the showers of street light, not quite sure what to do. In my brain I thumb through all the things that could have gone wrong. Oversleeping, kidnapping, death, all three?

At thirteen minutes past seven I am jolted out of my daydream by the collective rustle of a flock of lapwings all taking flight at once. The streetlamps flicker off and the sun bounces into the sky, dishevelled and sweating. “Oops” she pants.

 

Another snip, a flurry of folded paper spins downward. You handle the snowflake delicately, barely cradling it from the clutching breeze. Another snip. The walls are atom-thick. Not much left to take. A spider’s web of atomic nuclei bound together by dancing electrons. You carefully reach into the drawer beneath the desk, to pick out the smallest set of scissors, and toss the last pair onto the pile. One more snip. Boom. Oops.

Skin first, he slid into the water. He opened his mouth and gulped, firmly and steadily, with each beat of the second hand. The chlorine tickled his stomach lining. With each tock he got a little rounder, until the dry tiled floor of the pool was left strewn with inflatable rings and a crowd of begoggled, bewildered onlookers. They parted as he waddled toward the shallow end, crawled up the ladder, and headed to the changing rooms.

There was little left of Lara by the time she finally stumbled home. She’d been gone fifteen days. “Just one drink!” she’d said. And she really meant it. But things got out of hand. One thing led to another. Two hundred and fifty tequilas can do some funny things to a person. She’s not the best at saying no. She walked back to Peckham through the Gobe desert, dripping in Jägerbombs. By the time she dissolved through the door and collapsed on her bed, all that was left of her was a pair of blistered feet, a dusty traffic cone, and an empty handbag.

Every second Tuesday we’d have fish fingers. With chips and peas, in front of the TV. We’d style the heads of the chips with a ketchup bob, or an HP-fro. And we’d stand them up and they’d watch with us. Sometimes they would chat and bicker with each other, or give chippy hugs, smooshing together their saucey manes, while we shushed them still, so we could hear what Karl and Susan were up to on Neighbours. And they’d shush for a bit. Right up until their vicious, delicious, unavoidable end.