I stopped being able to see last week. Light got in my eyes, it made pictures, they were there, hanging on the walls of my brain, projected on my homuncular gogglebox, but I couldn’t see them. Like when you go to a gallery and you know the paintings are all around you, but there are other things to do, like talk about shopping or rain, or think about last week or what Suzy was or wasn’t saying to you, so you don’t really see them. You stay there so late that it’s closing time, and you don’t realise until the cleaners come and you smell the soap on the floorboards, and then you know that it’s time to leave, and, for a few seconds or minutes, you’re in the moment, because the citrus invasion from the janitor’s spray has jerked you into presence, but by this time the lights have been dimmed and, even though you’re lucid, and are trying to look, they are just not what they are meant to be, murky riddles on an artist’s wall.

“It’ll be alright, she’s not suffering any more.” Gloria comforted Peter. Peter sniffed and nodded. She had had a hole in the big toe, and the time had come where she was deemed not worthy, and simply tossed away. Time was, a good owner would whip out the thread and needle, and darn the holes, make them good as new. Not these days. Simply toss ’em out and get a new one. Leave the other behind. “It’s not fair.” sniffed Peter. “I know, I know.” the other socks reassured him. He and Gloria, vibrant green and yellow, best pals from the off. You can’t darn a broken heart.

My father doesn’t want me to jump. I say “It’s fine, I can do it!”. He says “Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll get yourself killed”. I know I can do it, I have the equipment. It’s the grand canyon, it takes a while to fall, there will be plenty of time to spare just in case it takes a while to kick in. I say, “I can fly dad, I’ve done it before!”. He says “No you haven’t”. I am squishing a polyester pillow against my chest, I check the buoyancy, it feels fine. I say “I have”. He says “Just come back with me.” I decide to submit. I start to come with him. Just as he loosens his grip, I jump.

Last week Steve put an ad in the paper. It read as follows: “7th June, 6pm, time travellers party, The Fox and Saviour.” He had also left the instruction that time travellers must not let on that they are time travellers: if no one turned up, then the future-people would know that this was not a party worth going to, so they wouldn’t come. There would have to be a seed population of present-folk. Otherwise it would be impossible to get them there in the first place. Of course, there is then the downside that there isn’t really much point in bringing time travellers if you don’t know they’re time travellers, what’s the point in that? Steve arrived at 6:20pm, and by the time he got there, there were twelve people and no cheese twists left. No one polishes off 200 cheese twists in 20 minutes. Sound evidence, he thought, of time travellers. But he didn’t say this, just in case.

We set out fourteen days ago, three of us. It was a Wednesday, we were at work, discussing charts and scales and office politics. Years and years, just the same day over and over again. I snapped. “Guys, fuck all this. Let’s go to Panama.” They were confused. I brought them muffins. They came round to the idea. We didn’t even quit, we just left, half-drunk coffees on the desk. We were all unattached and free. We would start a new life. We could do anything we liked. And we did. And now we’re in Panama. And it’s shit. We should probably go back.

David arrived in the morgue at 7:15pm. He had had bowel cancer, and had been operated on by Sarah, his girlfriend, earlier that day. There were complications, though they were mysterious: it did not end well for David, but it wasn’t because of the surgery. It was worse, perhaps, for Sarah, whose last moments with her love had been experienced through surgical gloves.

I opened him up to see if I could find out the cause of death. It was likely that it was related to the tumours, but we have to be certain these days. Cutting open the large intestine, I found a small, opaque, capsule. I opened it. An engagement ring, clean and irridiscent. He was such a bastard.

There is a cloud that looks like an apple blossom tree. Atop the cloud sits a boy, with green shoes and a wry smile, playing the recorder. I go to him. “Why the recorder?” I ask, “Why not something more majestic?”

“There is nothing more majestic than the recorder” He replies, resolutely.

That settles it then.

Linda is a tree.

“The thing about being a tree is,” said Linda, “that everything takes a long time and you don’t move very much.”

The cat didn’t stir.

“I said, the thing about being a tree is that everything takes a long time and you don’t really move very much.” she repeated, a little louder. She paused eagerly, awaiting a response, excited about her potential new friend. The cat continued to ignore her, despite having presumed a right to perch, rent-free, atop her branches to attain its privileged vantage point.

Cats are treacherous vermin thought Linda. Can’t be trusted. She gathered her courage and huffed: “You’re just… just a very rude cat!”

The cat couldn’t hear her. It wouldn’t have cared anyway, Linda’s just a tree.