Joni Mitchell on the terrace and a tea with rum. Scorched breeze sashaying between the pines and tiles. The sea close enough to hear but not close enough that the waves ever seem anything other than perfectly still. Soft bread with seeds and olive oil that tastes like olive oil. A feeling that anything could happen but that nothing needs to, we could wait until next week, or the week after that, or never.

You fell asleep. And no one woke you up. And you missed the whole film.

You awake to the scratch of nylon against nylon as sugared-up bodies wrap up two sedentary hours in winter coats, picking bits of popcorn from their teeth. They kick and trample still half-full boxes of snacks as their legs shuffle past the folded seats, and they say to each other, “That was really good.”

They found her holding her breath under the water in the shallow pool, trying to hide. How could she have known the clarity of water? Before the explosion scorched her retinas the only liquid she’d known was milk. She’d probably have been fine, if she’d been hiding in milk.

“That’ll be £6.99”, she said, flatly.

“That’s expensive,” he replied, taken aback, “I’m only sending it down the road!”

“Then take it there yourself?”

She was not interested in his protests. He’d been in the queue for six minutes and considered whether the trouble was worth any more of his time. Mrs Fazackerly behind him pretended to be very interested in the display of twines of various strengths and lengths at the end of the shelves. He’d queued here many times. It went: colourful confectionery, serious confectionery, writing paper, pens and pencils, sticky tape, very sticky tape, and twines of various strengths and lengths. He had often wondered what all the different strengths and lengths could be used for. And then he usually remembered that the world had changed without him noticing, and surely there were all kinds of uses for these things that he’d never be able to dream of.

Behind Mrs Fazackerly, a young woman dressed in neon popped her bubblegum, and waggled her leg impatiently. Behind her, a young boy seemingly dead to the world stood staring at the screen of some thick grey electronic device.

“Very well,” he replied, feeling hurried, and handing over, exactly and in coins, the £6.99.

It’s been a long hot couple of weeks. But the sky finally broke a few hours ago.

Boy rests his chin on his fists. A tower: left fist at the bottom, pinky to the windowsill. Right pinky atop the thumb of the left hand. Chin on top. Cheeks puffed out. Lips restless. Nose an inch from the freckled glass.

The air smells like it’s been waiting. You know it. When the gases have been dry for so long and the molecules have all been rubbing up against each other with no release, and the tension builds and builds until eventually it all lets loose. There is electricity in the air, but nothing to show for it. Yet. Two trees to the left of the window down the hill shake with the pleasure of the wind and the wet, like dogs who’ve jumped in the lake even though they were explicitly, loudly, repeatedly told not to.

Boy is done. No more playing outside. A welcome break? Maybe. Hopefully there’ll be fireworks.

There was grass. It was brown. There was a river. It was dry. There was a big mac. But it was just three buns.

A bottom bun.

A middle bun.

And a top bun, holding its sesame seeds high as a triumphant symbol that things were still good, still fine, still delicious.

But there was no lettuce. No tomato.

He sat by the dry bank on half a bench. One slat for the back and one below. Four sets of empty bolts.

No onions.

The stream had dwindled over the course of a few months. The flow started to recede in January. He first noticed an algae-cloaked handlebar poking above the surface, and then spotted the dry sloping walls of the ill-fated waterway revealing themselves. As the weeks went by, another part of the bike, a shopping trolley or two, plastic bags, bricks, rubble, flytipped bags of who-knows-what. Whatever ancient murk was hidden finally taking its time in the sun.

No patty. No secret sauce. Just those three buns.

“I’m telling mother!!” screamed Alice, in the sort of of shaky, anguished convulsion one has when one has emotions they don’t know where to put.

But I carried on. I opened another tin and, one by one, threw each precious olive over the edge of the ravine.

Alice had worked hard for these olives. I didn’t care. I resented her for being better than me. In every way. How could she be better than me in every way? It didn’t make sense. Surely there would be something…

I think that’s how she operates. I think she’s fuelled by jealousy, and it’s always her move. She sees me getting good at something, getting interested in something, and she seizes it, fast-tracks her skills by observing my trajectory, and does it better than me.

I throw her an uncaring grin. “Mother is dead.” I say this every time. One day it’ll be true.

It was the hottest day of the year. Hotter than any day before it.

January 1st and 2nd had been bloody freezing. Arctic. Made sense, this was, after all, the Arctic circle. Cold and round by nature, like a party ring that had been wrongly left in the freezer.

January 3rd was bloody hot in comparison. You could stand outside for a whole six seconds before your nose would start to show the first signs of falling off.

Luckily Grace had been through that rite of passage years ago. Round here noses were seen as an extravagance, something for the rich to show off how good their insulation was. None of that. Her mother had marched her outside at the age of six in just a vest and shorts to make sure any unnecessary protuberances were cryogenically excised. Goodbye nose. Goodbye fingers. Goodbye toes. Much better.

To the north of Regent’s Park, there’s a little grassy bank just next to the zoo. And over the fence by this grassy bank, a camel sits, thinking about life.

“Hello camel.”

The camel notices me but doesn’t want me to know just yet. His face is turned away from me. He rolls his eye towards me, and after some calculations, turns his head  and replies “Hello.”

“What’s on your mind, camel?”

Camel chews his thoughts for a while and then responds, “I saw a top on ASOS and it said it was camel coloured and I think that’s a bit racist so I’m just quietly fuming.”

Camel has a point. Didn’t stop him buying it though.

If I had a time machine I would get a takeaway curry and a big bottle of Lilt and share it with a caveman.

I bet he’d love a lamb bhuna. And you can’t go wrong with Lilt.

And I bet he’d think to himself, “Sure, it’s hard going out killing mammoths every day, and not having universal healthcare, but at least I can be happy knowing civilisation is really going somewhere.”

And I’d give him the recipe for bhuna… maybe a mammoth bhuna? But I wouldn’t give him the recipe for lilt. Because that’s a closely guarded secret.