Think you’re having a bad lockdown? Try sharing a house with your wife and her lover. Justin and Emma have the top floor, the one with both bedrooms, and the big bathroom. I have the middle floor, with the dining room and lounge. Emma said it was only fair, after all, it has the big TV, the thing I loved so much I should have married. And why not? In the eighteen months of this particular relationship never once have I caught my fifty-five inch Samsung legs akimbo beneath a driving instructor.

And not a very good one, at that. If he was better at checking his mirrors they might have twigged it was me following them to that layby where I busted them.

I wonder how he is at digging.

Stay inside when the meteors are showering, that’s the number one rule. It’s not actually against the law, but then why would the government need to make a law to stop it? Go outside when the sky is falling and you’re pretty much a goner, nine out of ten, at least.

I will take those odds, because Justin, the total wimp, will surely have a heart attack when Emma makes him bury my corpse in the garden.

The freshness of the garden air is a song for my lungs. I try a song for the lips too, follow it with a touch of whiskey, and reward is mine a moment later when the sound of hippos mating grinds to a halt and the dormer window of my former marital castle is hauled open. The nude top half of Emma appears, her right arm folded to cover her chest.

She gapes at me as if I’m the imbecile.

I wave the bottle. ‘Come outside, for a drink? Him too. Winner gets the house, yeah?’

‘God’s sake,’ she mutters, and disappears.

One last swallow, and the whiskey is gone. I turn my face to the sky, to the pinpricks of gold that swell as they fall closer. These lazy falling balls of flame glow with eerie beauty then wink into nothing as they graze roof slates and gutters. The first meteor touches down in the neighbour’s garden, grazing the branches of an apple tree and turning them to flame. Perhaps it really is an alien invasion, and they are bombarding us – wipe out what lives but leave the structures intact.

Other globes are beginning to touch down, leaving black circles in the lawn.

Justin yells from above. He is stood with his naked torso shoved through the window. He points a half empty vodka bottle at me.

‘Get the fuck inside. Lunatic!’

These things fall almost vertical, and from below it crowns his head, shining like a halo, before it passes through his body at the shoulders and out through his belly, winking into nothing to reveal the sky right where I should be seeing Justin’s formerly toned abs. By the time I get back up to the patio Justin is already there. Never before have I seen a more beautiful sleeping angel, and that’s with both arms broken at funny angles.

And then it hits me.

Justin, the bastard. I suppose I have to bury him now.