Noon, hot, still, quiet, not even insects, walking home along the alleys between bright gardens. Suddenly a noise like fruit falling and there, half a metre from me, was something not there a moment ago. Not a fruit: half a rat, the head and shoulders gone, and the bottom claws pointing in towards each other over the white fur. The blue sky above us was scorched and empty, with no sign of the kite that must have dropped its prey.

Ghastly omen, even more so to receive it in hyperreal sunshine rather than gothic mist. But perhaps my first thought was mistaken – was it meant as a gift, a sign of a generous universe more brutal than I like to think? The event seemed to insist on being understood somehow: rationally, it seems unlikely that the coincidence meant anything. But how much more unlikely that it should mean nothing.