The Headmaster scolded him for burning and biting his skin, and all he could do was apologize to his stepmother.

On the Thursday Bowman and Carmen had a party, they ordered Sukhothai and Bowman made a playlist for the occasion.

With his throat the scene of an alien autopsy and anxiety washing over him in waves, James thought about the work he had to do to get another job and fund existence in an area once called the murder capital of Western Europe.

From the upstairs window, I see him appear. The young boy – running on legs as thin as matchsticks – comes into view at the end of the street.

Suggi watched crows pick at a dying dog’s flesh. One pulled at the skin to stretch it while another pecked to cut. The dog’s guts spilled. Blood oozed. Nerves and clots pulsed outside Suggi’s cage.

“Mom, how did you actually meet dad?” I ask. She glances through the family photo album in my hands. “Margo, I’ve already told you. I nearly drowned in my three-day swim and he was the lifeguard who saved me,” she says. She smiles, save for her worried eyes.

Singapore in 2022, just beyond the brink of discussions about preventing global warming, is hotter and wetter than it has always been.

You are unborn. You are minus one day old. You jostle for a place in the future. Half-sleeping, without thinking, you become. You are one. A day. You are.

Gavin hasn’t changed a bit. That much is obvious when he comes barrelling over to me.