“Five.”

“How many?”

“Five.”

“That’s not a lot.” I check my phone. Still off.

“It’s better than nothing.” You drop one of the boxes of cereal. I reach to help. “Stop.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“But I am.”

“But don’t be.”

I am. Not about the cereal. You crouch down and lift it up with your working left hand. You don’t need my help. And I don’t need your help. But it’s nice to have it, sometimes. Even if I don’t need it. Sometimes it’s nice just to know that someone is there.

I hoist myself up onto the counter. “If it were up to me, there’d be more than five different kinds.”

“Why would you need more than five different kinds of lucky charms?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’d feel a bit luckier.

On Sunday I saw a leaf shaped like Richard Nixon.

I walked straight past it and then a little something at the back of my brain said, “Hey, did that leaf look like Richard Nixon?”

So I came to a little stop and I stood there for a moment, wondering whether to go back and check. And I thought, “why not.”

So I swivelled my suitcase around, and threw my scarf, which had fallen loose, over my shoulder, and went back to look at the leaf, which, indeed, did look like Richard Nixon. But then there was another leaf next to it, too, that also looked like Richard Nixon. I began to realise that in fact it was not that these leaves, which were the latest in a long, ancient line of foliage, looked like Richard Nixon, but rather, that Richard Nixon, with his jowels and his bulbous schnozz, had looked like them, like some sort of strange cosplay. When I looked across the bridge under the oak tree I could see nothing but Richard Nixon. And it distracted me a little from the fact that it was Autumn, and that summer was over. It felt like a sort of arboreal, John Malkovich version of 1972, which actually didn’t seem like a bad place to be in at all.

It was a pretty nice morning. I ate toast and drank some good juice. On the toast, I spread unsalted butter and put on top little chunks of crunchy mature cheddar. The juice had bits in. The good kind of bits.

The previous night I’d been out in the garden and I’d heard a little noise coming from the old well.

“Hello,” said the noise from the well.

I had been a little startled, because the well didn’t usually make noises. But, I didn’t usually stay out that late. I’d been delayed by a long queue at the post office. I don’t know why everyone had wanted to post something, that day. Maybe they were sending off coupons from the Times, too. I’ll keep an eye out.

The woman in a white sweater, still wearing the night on her neck, leans against a field of yellow flowers, which zoom past under the new spring sun, which also did not realise that the clocks had changed this morning, and had to get ready in a hurry.

“I would quite like a blue one”

“Why a blue one?”

“I think it would go well. In the kitchen.”

“Do they do blue ones?”

“Yes. I think so!”

“What if they don’t?”

“Well we’ll have a look!”

“But what if they don’t?”

“…then I’ll paint it blue.”

“You’ll paint it blue?”

“Yeah. Soy milk latte please!”

“And a long black. Thanks!”

“Stop flirting!”

“I’m not!”

“You are. It’s ok. You can flirt.”

“You can’t just paint it blue.”

“I can paint anything blue. I can paint you blue.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Watch me.”

“No sugar, thanks.”

“Naomi.”

“Anyway I think they do blue ones, I think I saw one on the website.”

“But if they don’t?”

“Fine okay. Maybe a green one.”

An elephant tried to get on my bus today. But it was too big to get through the door.

“I’d like to go Highbury & Islington, please!” she said, to the driver, from the curb. She didn’t know that it was a flat fare. £1.90.

The bus driver took one look and sighed, “sorry love, I’d let you on if I could.”

The doors slid shut. She got her trunk out of the way just in time.

I glimpsed her through the dusty window as we drew off, left behind and stood still on the pavement. Dejected but, probably, used to it.

Me, comfortably seated, little paper bag filled with fresh snow peas on my lap.

At the next stop I got off and walked back. A light jog. There she was.

“Come, it’s not far from here! I’ll take you. Would you like some peas?”

“I’m feeling sad today.”

You crouch on the little rock and follow her gaze across the pond and back.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just am.”

The water is empty but for two swans, gliding gently through the thin cracked ice, side by side.

“It’s ok to be sad sometimes. It’ll get better.”

“How?”

“Well there are nice things. Like,” you sit, now, on the rock, “like hot chocolate, and cheese on toast. And elephants. And… and books and hot water bottles.”

“I do like those things. Thank you.”

Julia sliced off three chunks of butter and placed them on her toast like bits of cheese. She put another piece of fresh toast on top, and placed her knife down, and waited.

Zigborg, sitting politely at the other end of the table, watched. He watched the butter and he watched the toast, and he watched Julia watching the toast and the butter, and then, he waited.

“Grglblrghbl?”

“Not now, Zigborg.”

“Gbrbrgbgblrbg gbrbgbl?”

“It’s so that the butter melts and then I can spread it more easily.”

“Gbrlbrbrblrgblr?”

“About a minute or so. Would you like some?”

“Gtgbbgblrbgb!”

And Julia grabbed another couple of slices of bread from the basket, and put them in the toaster, and then deconstructed her bread sandwich and spread the soft butter smoothly on each slice, and gave one to Zigborg.

“Grbrlbhgblrg!”

You steady yourself and stumble a little closer to the lamppost. The mist on your glasses gives the light from the bulb a strange fuzzy halo. You take your glasses off to wipe them. As you put them back on the lamp is clear for a few seconds but then the haze returns. You’re within reaching distance.

You turn to me and look me straight in the cheek. I’m staring ahead because I get travel sick. We’re on the bus south to Guatemala. I’m by the window. The sun is coming down on the other side of the aisle and there’s a nice light flooding in.

I can tell you’re looking but I’m concentrating on not vomiting on the small child in the seat in front.

“What.” I say.

You carry on staring at my cheek. I know you’re looking at my cheek, and not my eyes or my mouth, because I can see your reflection in the tiny little convex mirror they put next to the ashtray on the seat in front. Nobody is smoking, even though there are no no-smoking signs. I guess it’s normal now.

“I think I forgot something.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No going back now.”

“Yeah. There’s something on your cheek.” You lean a little bit closer and rub my face with your finger. And then you lick it and rub it a little bit more. And then you lean all the way in and lick it with the tip of your tongue, and then,

“What was it?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”