This is what happens if you don’t throw your crisp packets in the bin, Natasha

I live on the streets in between the cracked slabs, in the black oil stains under cars. I race along double yellow lines, soothe a pigeon’s gnarled foot and wrap around the homeless woman’s sleeping bag to give what warmth I have. I take a flying cartwheeling and occasionally aerial journey in a crisp packet and then helicopter away, intending for the ether but ending up in an eye.

Natasha wipes her eye. Under her lid is the scrape of grit or some other irritant.

She was on her way to the nail bar, her head full of what the hell Wayne’s last text meant and whether to wear the red or the pink dress tonight. But now there is something in her eye.

Part of Natasha’s brain is worrying her mascara will run or that her eye might be bloodshot and that she must remember to buy a new pair of tights for tonight. But that part is quite small. Another primal area is recognizing there is a foreign body around her eyeball, something wrong, something alien. Tear ducts and blink reflexes kick in. However, the majority of Natasha’s mind is shifting, reconfiguring, reforming. She opens her mouth, breathes in, then exhales, laughing at all sensations.

Seven seconds ago I was riding an air current after a lift in a crisp packet, now I am embodied.

Natasha’s memories; how to walk, why Wayne’s no good for her, GCSE French, are all accessible like some wonderful eccentric library. Natasha smiles more widely than usual.

This is going to be fun.