My friend has just separated from his partner of seven years, for reasons that horrify him because they’re so seemingly mundane. He’s holding together admirably, his ex-partner is too, but yesterday he almost broke down at a medical centre, filling in a form that asked for an emergency contact, when he realised he didn’t know, any more, whom he should nominate. It’s the little things, he says. I’ve got a handle on the big stuff, but the little things still kick me in the guts. I tell him this is always, always how we operate as human beings, that the big things are too abstract, somehow, for us ever really to have to deal with, but the tiny details, the everyday occurrences and injuries are our undoing, as much as they are the things that bring us joy. The small transfers of energy that shock us, sudden and electric.

A colleague and I turn up a bit too early for a comedy show on a Saturday night, and wait in the courtyard, in a line of sorts, behind the theatre. It’s drizzling with rain, and just starting to get bitingly cold. We’re all grouped under a canvas awning and holding our beer bottles by their necks so our hands don’t get too icy. Someone we can’t see is smoking near the fence, and their exhalation drifts vaguely over our heads. My colleague breathes in deeply, sighs. I’ll always miss smoking, she says, always. I loved it so much.