You are given a calf-skin wallet for your birthday.

You have a little boy and he shows you his butterfly collection, including the killing jar.

You are watching Tee V and suddenly you discover a wasp crawling on your wrist.

You are reading a novel. The characters are visiting a seafood restaurant. One of them orders lobster, and the chef drops the lobster into the tub of boiling water while the characters watch.

You rent a mountain cabin. It is rustic knotty pine with a huge fireplace. On the walls someone has hung old maps, and above the fireplace a deer’s head has been mounted, a full stag with developed horns. The people with you admire the décor.

You are watching an old movie on Tee V, a movie from before the war. It shows a banquet in progress; the guests are enjoying oysters. The entrée consists of boiled dog, stuffed with rice.

You visit a seaside village. Your boyfriend buys a real mole skin from a pile of tiny skins in a box from under the counter of the village shop. It looks like a miniature, elegant rug for a doll’s house.

You leave your flat in the middle of the morning, and walk along the city street. Everyone else on the street is standing still, and the cars have stopped. You turn and see a young faun, walking along the middle of the road. A teenage boy starts to film it on his phone. The deer takes fright and runs into the school playground.

You liv with a cat, that is too frightened to go outside. You try to carry her into the back garden, but as you walk down the stairs she claws at your shoulder. She jumps from your arms and runs to the doormat.

You are on a train. As it stops at a station you look out of the window and see a fox. It is mangy and skinny. It has a piece of blue plastic pipe, wedged over its muzzle.

You are a young child. You are riding your bike along a lane that runs between two rows of houses. Suddenly a dog dashes out of a garden and starts to chase you, snarling and biting at your trousers and ankles as you peddle faster and faster.

You are reading on the stone balcony of an old country house. You hear a crack, like the sound of an, air rifle. You look straight up to see a b, ricochet off a wood pigeon. Both animals fall to the grass below, dazed.

You are staying as a guest in a modern house, in an area green with foliage. The house has a cat, whom the owner calls Cat. One evening as you walk home from the beach, you hear a man calling angryly for his dogs. When you turn the corner at the house’s edge, you see a small dog with its mouth still clamped around Cat’s throat.

You find a dead wasp on a window ledge. You put it in an empty matchbox and make a little bed for it to lie in out of tissue paper. You carry it around in your pocket for a week. Then you put it in the bin.

You win a goldfish at a fair, and bring it home. Sometimes it floats to the top of its bowl and you revive it by adding a capful of whisky to the water. Sometimes you find it lying on the carpet next to the bowl, having leapt out during the night, and when you put it in the bowl, it starts swimming again. It loses its scales and develops blood-red rings around its fins. It livs for thirteen years.

You buy a cheap, fake, tiger-skin jacket for ten dollars and wear it all year round. One day you open up the lining and discover that the fur, is real.

You leave your flat in the early morning while the roads are still deserted. You hear a strange sound, very close, yet unrecognisable. It sounds as if an airplane is moving dangerously low to the ground. You look up in time to see two swans, flying directly over your head, using the road to navigate their route. You reach up with one hand and you feel the air moving between your fingertips and the belly of the second animal.