Life’s dropouts punctuate the night-time street, harrowing stories repeated over and over, never making the news. Getting through tonight is more important than any tomorrow.

I never got birthday presents anyway, as mine fell on Christmas. I smile softly at the irony.

It’s not as cold as last night, but that was over: no point dwelling on it. Besides, the body went this morning. They couldn’t get its arms to bend and fit into the box so the two council workers just covered it in a blanket and carried it out to the van between them. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Laughter comes from the soul, and ours are black. Black as the festering pit in which we currently squatted, too cold even for fleas.