Now, standing here remembering the past, I think of the letter in my pocket. My current future. Which doesn’t seem like much of a future at all.

The gangplank sways and creaks underneath me. Odd. I notice the motion sensor light above the door hasn’t come on. I reach up and wave my hand. Nothing. I tap it a few times. Darkness reigns.

The lock yields to the key and I’m trying to remember if I’ve got a replacement bulb somewhere. I step inside and flip the switch on the wall. No light here either. The circuit board’s tucked at the back of a cupboard in the old engine room and I follow my phone’s light through the houseboat right to it. The board itself is a mystery. I start randomly flipping switches in the hope something will work. It doesn’t. I should really be able to do something like this myself, go the DIY route, but whenever I try that sort of thing I step into a parallel world where I’m Wile E. Coyote and everything I touch is made by ACME. And in this case I’d be dealing with live electricity, so on balance I decide the situation warrants a professional. Which is going to cost. I think of the letter, the offer they’ve made. Truth is I could use it. But by signing I’d be out forever, with no chance of going back.

As I exit the utility cupboard my shoulder knocks something off a shelf. Illuminated in the phone’s beam is a round tin, with the most kitsch hand-painted Virgin Mary you’ve ever seen. Added to that, the painter wasn’t actually that skilled; an unfortunate smudge makes it look like the Virgin Mary has a moustache. I pick it up, remembering the day Tanya and I bought it out at the flea market at Waterlooplein. It was one of those spontaneous purchases you make when you’re high on another person; at the time we thought it was hilarious, but in the end it was just a stupid tin which never had any use and quickly got lost in everyday life.

Now, though, it reminds me of it all, of how it ended between us and I start to feel the deep pull of loss and regret. I think back to that night, to the things I had to do to keep her safe, and which meant that in the end I lost her.

I shove the gun right into his face. The barrel pushes his lip up.

The flashback’s brief, a split second, but still so disorientating. And I know that it might return at any moment. I stumble back into the main area, reaching for my sealed glass stash jar on the shelves behind the sofa. They are ferocious beasts, the flashbacks, and the only thing that even has a hope of taming them is cannabis.