‘Even the rain is drowning,’ he mutters. If Thomas could only recover, or genuinely imagine, what it was to be. Instead his feet move damply and his mind glitches. Over and over, the same thoughts, the same corrections, the same aimless abstractions.

‘The Sleep Walkers are coming,’ he whispered once in the dark, ‘and we have to be prepared.’ This has gone on for months now, him talking in his sleep, usually babbling incomprehensibly. It’s only on occasion, like that night, where he will say complete sentences. Sentences containing words I didn’t even realise he knew.

He sauntered under the marri trees, feeling her absence. Ashley usually accompanied him on these mindless sojourns, but she couldn’t come out today. Her dad said she needed to help out at the bakery. He told his mum about this and she baulked. She said a child shouldn’t be expected to work. It was a form of slavery.

NO BREAKS rings in her ears when she goes to bed at night and if it is a good dream, she takes a break, and uses the toilet. She is resentful towards her boss, who doesn’t know she has IBS, nor can he ever, because he might fire her and say, YES BREAKS, as in, bye bye, see ya, you’re done. No breaks, IBS, and RSI in one hand, left or right, it doesn’t matter which, she can’t tell.