And so she occupied her mouth with eating to disguise her disdain. Soft, wet pickles squeezed themselves out of her Whopper as it took the brunt of two of her many clenches, the fists and the teeth. The water from a tomato dribbled gaily down her jaw and beaded like dew on the soft faint fuzz of her chin. Mayonnaise and meat juices engulfed her fingers. And yet, she could not avert her gaze, and upon taking in all she could of this goliath bite, she reoriented her burger so that its buns were perpendicular to the tangent plane of the earth, mostly covering her mouth and nose, and she began to chew, gaze intact, so mechanically, hydraulically, powerfully, and automatically that she could not tell what was tongue and what was beef.

It seemed to Gerry, at seven years old, as he craned his gaze upward to the distant vaulted ceilings painted dark blue, lustrous golden stars nestled between their beams, and down past spiral columns of sandstone and marble and granite and who knew what else, to the polished darkwood pews, and red velvet carpet, and sweet waves of incense smoke tumbling from curlicued wrought iron holders, it seemed to him that God must exist. For who else could possibly deserve to live here?

For a few months, the streetlights dimmed in sheets. Grids folded themselves down and backup generators faltered. Years ago, in other cities, the lamps had been replaced by flaming torches, held aloft by fearful mobs and, later, staked in the ground calmly, by the remaining few that were resigned to their fate. But not here. That was all over. In dimming waves of gentle quiet, the night reclaimed the cobblestones. Until finally, all but one had surrendered. All but one, atop a steep hill beside an empty wooden house, watching the city fall asleep, its only company the gentle hum of its dynamo.

He watched her strip the pulp from the centre of the reeds with the concave side of a teaspoon, sharpened at the rim with a whetstone. She split each one open down the middle by hand and ran the spoon from end to end, the insides of the plant bunching up like viennetta before falling to one side or the other, and then into the long grass.

“Isn’t that a waste?”

“Not worth keeping. No nutritional value. Dry as hell but can’t even burn it.” She looked up only very briefly after finishing one reed and picking up the next. “Besides, the skitterbugs love it. And when the skitterbugs come, the honeyrats come, and when the honeyrats come the rainowls come and gobble them up. And I’d sooner have happy rainowls out here than skitterbugs in my syrup, honeyrats under the floorboards, and an angry, hungry rainowl tapping at my window in the middle of the night.” She finished another and set it down, and looked at him. “Wouldn’t you?”

He had chosen to arrive at 5pm exactly. He was never early, and never late: he had set his cracked leather watch—which he found in the roadside piles of tokens of the dead—to the morning news, to make sure it was always just right and to save any embarrassment. He checked it every day at eight in the morning, and in six years it had not skipped a single second.

She was stirring mincemeat with a wooden spoon, propped up against the kitchen island. At 5pm exactly, a noise penetrated the silence. She glanced up as the cuckoo clock began to cluck, exactly on schedule, as it did every day.

He stood in silent dismay as he felt his five rhythmic knocks being stolen by the clatter of the mechanical bird. Now he was late.

She pulled off her right sock and shook out the sand, then turned it inside out and hit it fifteen or so times against the arm of her plastic chair, just to get out every last little grain. She lay it over her shoulder for safekeeping, and proceeded to do the same with the other sock.

“How did it go?” asked Sarah, having heard the lashes of undergarments against furniture and coming in to see what was happening. Eilidh didn’t respond. She took a shoe in each hand and bashed them together, and little pieces of beach dust rained down onto the floor, and she kept going until the rain ceased and only sound came out.

“I wouldn’t do that inside.” Eilidh looked up at Sarah, her eyes and lip beginning to betray her, as her face grew wet and red. Sarah didn’t waver. “I’ll get the brush.”

At 5:39 Cora went to check on the chicken nuggets. They were still a bit soft and not quite as golden brown as she would have liked, so she closed the oven door again, forcing a billow of hot air onto her face that made her eyes sting slightly. She glanced at the nuggets through the halftone-dotted oven door to check they were safe, and rose back up with just her legs. She noticed the time on the oven clock. 3:46. She had always kept the clocks in the house exactly on time, and took a dim view of people who did not. There had been a power cut. Or something.

I lay my pen on the table and play with the lid. I suck it in such a way that I form a little vacuum, and the lid clings to my top lip and dangles like a christmas tree decoration, or a misguided limpet on a dinghy, or a daughter saying goodbye to a leg that she knows she won’t see again for a long, long time. I trail my gaze up to the window and through the glass and slide it through the air. The evening autumn sun glitters through twinkling branches of varying wisdom, some trembling at the acceptance of their fate, a kaleidoscope of layers of red and orange and still-green, and my lip begins to hurt, and I push off the lid with my lower jaw and it falls to the page, splattering a tiny amount of residual ink.

Shall we ask them to turn it down? It’s pretty loud.

My teeth are rattling. Excuse me will you turn it down? My teeth are rattling.

No.

But my teeth are rattling.

Then please could you rattle them more quietly?

Hmm.

Hello thank you good day.

Can you believe it?

People today.

I know.

Maybe rattle them more loudly.

I’m not sure how.

Here, like this.

Wow that is loud, let me try.

That’s it. That’s great. Really good. That will show them.

Excuse me please could you turn it down.

Turn what down.

Your teeth.

What about them.

They are rattling very loudly. People are uncomfortable.

No.

Please.

No.

The crunch of gravel from below and beyond the window tickled the boy out of his daydream, and he rose up to run almost before his legs could receive the message from his ears, stumbling onto the thick carpet and scrambling back up. He knelt onto the radiator and watched through the wet glass as a large green car landed in the yard and came to a gentle stop. He waited in anticipation to see his uncle emerge, but no one stirred from the vehicle, and his knees began to burn on the hot metal, and he shuffled himself around to keep them from hurting.