Chapter One

I

How it happens is a long story, always.

And I apparently begin with being here: a boxy room that’s too wide to be cosy, its dirty ceiling hung just low enough to press down a broad, unmistakable haze of claustrophobia. To my right is an over-large clock of the kind favoured by playschools and homes for the elderly, the kind with bold, black numbers and cartoon-thick hands that effectively shout what time it is whether you’re curious or not. It shows 8:42 and counting. Above, is a generalised sting of yellow light.

8:42.

But I don’t know which one—night or morning. Either way, from what I can already see, I would rather not be involved in all this too far beyond 8:43.

In one fist, I notice, I’m holding a key. Its fob is made of viciously green plastic, translucent and moulded to a shape which illustrates what would happen if a long-dead ear were inflated until morbidly obese. I only know that it’s actually meant to be a leaf, because it is marked with an effort towards the stem, the ribs and veins that a leaf might have. I presume I’m supposed to like this key and give it the benefit of the doubt because people are fond of trees and, by extension, leaves. But I don’t like leaves, not even real ones.

I’ll tell you what I do like, though: what I adore—I’m looking right at it, right now and it is gorgeous, quite the prettiest thing I’ve seen since 8:41. It concerns my other hand—the one that is leaf-free.

It is a liquid.

I do love liquids.

Rising from the beaker to the jug in that continually renewing, barley sugared twist: falling from the jug int