Motorways buckle in the heat. We need oven-gloves for the steering-wheels. Even scorpions take to the swimming pools.

On our patio, I find a dead moth. Its upper wings are ashen grey, bearing two sickle-moons of gold. The undersides ripple between copper, bronze and pale blonde. Its body is softly furred as a rabbit’s; each antennae a single, trailing eyelash.

Beautiful as a jewel, it triggers a strange wash of affection: I wish we’d met while it lived; that it had taught me moth-tongue.

I hold it to my ear like a gold pocket watch. I think I catch a low hum, with clicks, breaths, sighs like crumbling sand — the language of a small, warm-blooded ocarina, a susurrus of protest song, damning us, all our facades and poisons colonizing its natal air.