My name’s Louis. I live in Paris and I’m twelve and a half, nearly thirteen. I love soccer, manga, the rapper Maître Gims, Pokémon YouTube channels, Nutella, films from the Nineties and 2000s (no, that’s not uncool), the smell of exhaust fumes, funky skateboards, Madame Ernest, my maths teacher’s boobs, maths without Madame Ernest’s boobs, my super Granny Odette, my mother (most days).

Apart from that, I think I’m dead.

I don’t normally like talking about myself, but, given the situation and since you’re there, I may as well tell you a bit about who you’re dealing with and what happened.

I live with just my mum. Her name’s Thelma. I spent my last morning with her. I wish I could tell you that it was a wonderful morning, that we shared some magic moments, that we hugged affectionately and said loving words to each another. Actually, it was a horribly ordinary morning, which isn’t really surprising. We don’t live every hour of every day as if it was our last, that would be exhausting. We just live, that’s all. And that’s exactly what my life with my mother was like.

So, when I think back, that morning was perfect. I know that Mum must feel very differently about it, I know she must be going over every detail of those last minutes in her mind and wondering what she should have done, what she could have changed. I have the answer, although I know Mum would disagree: nothing.

That’s a weird thing to say when you know that our morning together boils down to Mum trying to get me out of bed, me complaining, dilly-dallying and complaining some more. That’s how it looked from the outside. That’s also what I saw. Now that I’ve got some (a lot of) distance, I’m conscious of my sensations – of that vague feeling, those tingles in the brain that only become accessible when there’s nothing else. The burden of habit. The joy of habits. The unchanging pleasure of family rituals. Those little day-to-day gestures that define us and that change everything.