I am building my volcano lair. It’s big and scary. It will show I am a threat. I’ll fill a tank with sharks. I’ll hide out here and wait until they send their spies and secret agents out to stop me. They’ll ask my what my plan is as I dangle them above the magma, and I’ll drop them straight in. When you have a volcano lair, you don’t need a plan.

The moon started visiting regularly. She said it hurt that we never came to see her any more. That more of us took pictures and fewer of us talked to her. We felt a deep sense of goodness, knowing that the moon wanted our friendship. We didn’t mention to her what the tidal forces were doing to us. But she felt it too. The cracks were growing.

There had been something about a chicken. It had been red, or gold, or purple: some colour suggesting luxury. And though it hadn’t laid golden eggs, he had been certain it would bring him prosperity. Wise eggs, was the phrase in his mind. Wisdom eggs. It hadn’t been a dream. It was a thought from that half-awake state where new things seem true, which made it hard to shake off. He knew that he probably ought to. But he didn’t want to let the promise of the chicken go.

Another hot glue burn on my fingers, not so accidental this time: I’m pushing the pieces where they need to go, smearing and shaping the glue before it cools, it can burn me all it wants if it just fucking works. A job I didn’t much care about until it started going wrong, and now I’d tear my life up to get it done. I know because the sun will be coming up soon, and I have work in the morning, and I’ll sit dead-eyed at my desk and come home hating myself for doing nothing all day and hating my boss for not noticing. The glue burns, and it ought to burn badly because it sticks, but it never seems to get too deep, like it just can’t hold enough heat to do real damage, which I suppose is why it melts so easily. In a minute I’ll run the cold tap over my finger just because I know I ought to, and the cold will hurt more than the burn.

I like things in strange containers. A cup of gravel. A vase of beans. Jelly in my pockets. Gets you in touch with the truth of a thing. Too often we mix things up with their containers, like when the cold soup slides out of a can and hold its shape; like when we think the skin is the person. But spilt things are more their wrongness then they are themselves: milk on the table, blood on the floor. Put something where it’s OK, but just not usual, and you can begin to see it clearly. So, that’s what happened. I know you’re angry. You’ll see it. Just look again.

I wasn’t sure if it was a squeaky gate or a whimpering dog, but it was keeping me awake. If it was a squeaky gate then it was insane for someone to be opening and closing it over and over again at three in the morning. If it was a dog then someone had been very cruel to it. So either way, I felt I had a deep and inarguable justification for screaming out of the window. To do so was a moral good. So I lay there until the sun came up, long after the squealing stopped, trying to think of words I could scream that would cover either possibility.

It was built to see the world. To roll through airports and along city streets. To carry everything a traveller might need. It even liked riding the baggage carousel. Now it lived in the loft, full of old coats that would never travel again either. It kept the dust off them. One of its wheels got knocked off on the way up there. Sometimes, a mouse nibbled at its corners.

We ran a sweepstakes on when the last leaf would fall. It had been a mild autumn, but storms were forecast. We had bets right through to February, and mine was the latest. Sometimes, when their day rolled around, people went out and shook the tree. I didn’t mind. I had climbed up and glued a few leaves on long ago.

Yndric was the first tree in the forest, older than the forest itself. It had felt many changes in the air and the earth. By now it was hard to feel what was a change in the world and what was a change in Yndric. The wind seemed to blow more gently in these years: was that the strength in its branches, or the shelter of its brethren?

On the first day of the thaw a wizard came to Yndric, one who had studied within himself so that he might talk with the trees. He planted his open hands in the earth at Yndric’s roots. Men will come, the wizard said. I can give you sight and hearing to know them. I can give you voice and quickness to frighten them. Then you will be safe. Yndric said, You would make me a man to protect me from men. Let them come and be changed into us. Let them grow roots deep in the earth and branches that reach the sky. Let them grow together into a forest. Then we will be safe.

In the dream I step out on to the ice and hear it creak. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I have no choice. If I understood I was dreaming, I would know that if the ice broke I would be awake before I felt the cold. The dream isn’t scary. Scary is waking up in the middle of the ice, with warm sunshine on my face and a long walk home.

For the month of December, I put my medication behind the windows of an advent calendar and pretend it is a little treat, which of course, compared to the alternative, it is. I buy fancy little chocolate pearls and put them in my pill box, and feel a little whisper of pleasant surprise when I tip one out into my hand each morning. It makes the whole ordeal that little bit more pleasant, except on the awful days when habit takes over, and I swallow my chocolate down without tasting it.

Her favourite trick to perform was the one where you take a volunteer’s watch, smash it, and restore it. Cogs and springs everywhere, a nice little show. Everybody understands that it’s a trick, so they don’t mind pretending that the Apple Watch you took off the gentleman in the front row had little bits of clockwork inside. It’s precious, that understanding between performer and audience. It makes things so much more fun. Particularly when she wraps the gentleman’s watch in the handkerchief, and smashes it for real.

I tried my hand at bricklaying. I never thought it was for me. It didn’t fit who I had come to believe I was. But I have watched my friends think that way, and it makes me want to scream at them that they are so much more than they believe. A person can be anything. I will not be held back any longer. Anyway, the wall fell down.

He transformed from the waist down: thick, dark bristles and cloven hooves. I thought: at least I won’t have to pair his socks any more.