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.

You kick a can down the wet cobbled street. The end of the road bends away like a mars bar left over a radiator; the houses follow along to either side. The can clanks along and comes to rest under the wheel of a red parked VolksWagen. At the end of the street you can see the skyline of the town, painted into the bowl between two hills. It’s early morning, but you haven’t been to sleep, so as far as you’re concerned it’s very late at night. A light frost sleeps on the windows, and quiet wisps of steam breath snake around your nose and mouth, before bursting into weak plumes. You follow the path of the can down to the car, and bend down the wheel to pick it up. You grab the wet, half crushed drink container and trip on the yellow gaze of a dark cat, crouching on the pavement beside the car, waiting for you to show her the way home.

She lay her stomach flat over the seat of the chair and craned her head downwards, holding the  sharp-edged chair legs with her hands and counterbalancing herself with outstretched toes. Her hair dangled and blew in the breeze from the open door and flicked in her eyes. She brushed it away with one hand, and contnued to curve her line of sight to the underneath of the large wooden stool, at which point she realised she could have just picked up the chair and turned it upside down, and so got up, did so, and, sure enough, found the envelope.

She draws a line in white chalk across the centre of the room, perpendicular to the dark wooden boards. A beam of sunlit dust brushes one side of the partition and leaves the other untouched. She crumbles and crushes the chalk in her hand, lets it fall to the floor on the darkened side, and lays herself down.

A hot wet smell slithered out of the open pipe and rubbed itself uninvited against her nostrils. A centipede scuttled around the base of the cistern in a hurry. Maybe it was late for dinner. How many legs do centipedes have? she thought. It went by too quickly for her to count. Probably more than me. Holding her nose, biting her lip, closing her eyes and ears, she slid herself onto the edge of the opening, and let herself slide into the dark.

I’ll meet you at the railroad tracks. By the big tree, next to the wind, below the sun. Just near the dead raccoon. I hope it’s still there. In case it’s not, check for signs. Bones, little ones: raccoons have tiny fingers and few toes. Specks of blood or entrails. Or ants who have followed a promising trail only to find nothing left. Bits of stripey fur. Or stripey bits of fur? I’m not sure how raccoons work.

Little leaf sighed a contented sigh as the last of her skin turned to brown. The softening amber sunlight pulled the blankets of night closer as the edges of the autumn air grew sharp and cold. She’d had a green and pleasant summer, was happy with her work, and accepted with grace that it was over and that things must move on. She yawned gently and pulled the sides of her body inwards, edges crackling slightly as she curled up to rest, and let go.

Helena lived on the fourteenth floor of a very tall building. The designers had intended it to have forty floors, but had, unexpectedly, come up against a law regarding population density in the area, and near the end of the project had suddenly been disallowed to proceed with the full build. And so, instead of tearing the whole thing down, they knocked every other floor away to make each one double height. The entrance to the flat was on the floor labelled ‘seven’, but the lift said ‘fourteen’, and there was nothing on the odd-numbered floors. Why didn’t they just give two floors to each flat? she’d asked the thin, spotty, nervous-looking estate agent, or a mezzanine? He actually looked quite ill, she had been a bit worried. Well, um, I’m not really sure miss, I think they couldn’t afford any more stairs. She didn’t accept this answer, but she liked the light, and decided to be content with not knowing.