A squirrel lost her footing.

It was three in the afternoon and it had been a long day.

Scurrying from branch to branch. Tea with Esther. Hang the washing out. Pick the kids up from school. See the dentist about that damn tooth. And those bloody nuts won’t bury themselves.

What she needed, Esther said, was a spa day.

And Esther was right.

But the squirrel lost her footing while rushing to pick up the cake for Cheryl’s birthday before the shop closed.

And she fell off a tall branch, hit her head on a conker, and tumbled straight under the tyre of a Citroen C3 Picasso.

Yesterday I was chatting to a man at the bus stop.

He wore brown leather shoes and a short sleeved shirt. He was eating a salad with a wooden fork from Pret. I didn’t know the fork was from Pret but I guessed so. Pret wasn’t far away.

The forks from Pret are not very practical, really, because the prongs are so small. I’d been looking at him for a while thinking this. The prongs are really small.

I think he noticed me looking. I think there is a way of eating a salad when you know no one’s watching, and there is a way of eating a salad when you’re being watched, and I could sense a real change in the air.

“These little forks eh.” I said, because I knew he knew I was watching and I thought it would be weird if I didn’t say anything.

He was perching on one of the little red seats that aren’t really for sitting on at all.

“The prongs are so small.”

He looked up from his salad and said, “Hm?”

And then I said thank you and left.

The woman in front of him fumbled in her pocket to find her ticket. Presumably. Or, to not find it, so it seemed. To be sure she inverted the inside of the pocket and pulled it all the way so it hung from her hip like the ear of a sad dog, and a little cloud of tissue dust spilled out and swirled in the sunbeam.

This is a black and white photograph.

It’s creased at the corners and faded in the middle, but still crisp and dark and high-contrast where it was covered by the frame.

A girl lifts it out from a wooden box that smells of pencils.

“You were hot, Grandma!”

And the other two giggle, and you blush.

But the sun is hot and the sky is blue and the sand is bright. And your bikini is red and scratching at the back. Fred tucks in your label.

This is a black and white photograph. Your tattoos are still fresh and crisp. The piña colada slips down your throat and tastes like seven different colours at once.

It is July seventh, 1967. A woman with a very large red hat stands at the counter of a diner. It’s the only building for about fifty miles.

“A coke.”

“A coke?”

“A coke, please.”

The waitress nods quietly and looks up and lingers on the hat, maybe slightly too long, and then looks back down, and smiles again and nods quietly again, but this time letting out a little half sigh, half laugh. But it’s not funny. It really isn’t funny how large her hat is.

In the back of the diner, the swing doors to the kitchen flap open. Danny looks up from his arugula to see what Katy has to say.

“There’s… there’s a lady out front..” she pauses and forgets to keep talking and just stares at the floor for a while. A few seconds, probably.

“A lady? What lady? She want somethin’ cookin’?”

“No…” says Katy, “she wants… a coke.”

“Just a coke? Why you in here for? Just give her a coke?”

“Not just a coke… she wants a coke…. please.”

“Was… was she wearing a hat?”

“She was wearing a hat, Danny. A really, really, really big hat.”

I put my jumper on for the first time in three weeks.

It has been cold at night. I wake up at 4 every day, pretty much. I go to the bathroom and crawl back into bed, double fold the single sheet like puff pastry and swathe myself in it like a sausage roll. And then I sleep a couple more hours and then I get up and I start doing Things.

I’m on a boat to the far peninsula. It’s cold and windy and I have put on my jumper. For the first time in three weeks. I’m wearing shorts, still. Shorts and a jumper. I think that’s me. It’s a look I don’t see often but it’s how I feel most comfortable, I think. It’s me.

It’s not a particularly nice jumper. Just grey.

The sun has gone now. It’s got work to do in the Pacific. Meetings in Japan. But it put on a good show. I’ve never seen a sky so undeniably the colour of fruit. Peaches, reds, pinks, yellows. Even some aubergine, at the end.

Back home the sky is only blue or grey. No fruit that colour. No healthy fruit anyway. But it is like my jumper. Maybe that’s why I feel at home.

“I’m not from round here.”

“I can tell.”

“You can?”

“I can tell.”

“Is it that obvious?”

It isn’t that obvious, I can’t really tell. I’m trying to appear aloof, aloft, cool, cold. Calm.

“It is to me.”

“Why? What am I doing differently?”

“Well, for starters,” I pause. I glance up at the moon. I can’t see it because it’s 11am. “For starters, you’re wearing black shoes. We wear white shoes here.”

She swivels her not-from-round-here eyeballs down to our feet. He’s right, she thinks. Probably. Just then Pablo arrives with the bread. “Hola amigo!” He says. He’s wearing blue shoes.

“Where is Pablo from?” Asks Alyssa.

“Pablo is from Russia. Do not trust him.”

Ella.

“Ella!”

Ella.

“Come in from the cold.”

But Ella wasn’t cold. “I’m not cold.”

Ma breathed deeply. It wasn’t easy for her. They said she and Pa should never have adopted a human. They said lava monsters could not provide a good and stable home for a girl like Ella. But what did they know? Ella was fine. Ella was happy. She had so many friends. All of them made of lava. So what if they never touched? So what if a kiss or a hug would cause her to catch fire and die?

It was sometimes difficult for Ma and Pa to remember that Ella wouldn’t solidify into hard rock if she stayed out too long on a summer’s day. It was 105 in the shade.

And Ella was grateful, of course. To be adopted. By lava monsters.

Li sold oranges. Online. He didn’t even need to be there.

The phone rang.

“Ring ring” said the phone.

Li picked it up, upside down, flipped it round, noise to ear, mic to mouth.

“Good afternoon, Li’s oranges!”

“Hello, is that Li’s oranges?”

“Yes, hello, good afternoon, this is Li’s oranges!”

“I would like to buy some oranges.”

“Have you tried the website?”

“Yes I have tried the website. It doesn’t have the oranges that I want. I wanted mandarins.”

“I’m afraid we don’t sell mandarins,” replied Li, “You’ll have to try another store, online or otherwise.”

And the customer grumbled.

And Li didn’t care.

Because he didn’t sell mandarins.

than be with you.

🙂