I sometimes wish my imagination wasn’t quite as good as it happens to be.

I know, not something you expect a writer to say. However, it is still something I think about.

This is the first summer Emma, my cat, and I are spending together. I love my flat. It is beautiful and filled with sunlight. After all the moves and all the buildings I’ve lived in, this particular place has been the closest to being my absolute favourite. I just love coming home to it.

And still I sometimes shiver with worry.

The windows I just mentioned I loved so much because they fill my flat with light and warmth?

My biggest nightmare.

Emma loves to climb, loves to explore and especially loves to hang out on my narrow windowsills. Did I mention I live on the eighth floor?

She loves to look out of the window and I don’t mind her doing so on the window facing the balcony. But the one I have in my office, the one that faces an eight floor drop only covered by a flimsy screen? A screen only good enough to keep insects out?

No, I don’t like her sitting on the sill where she loves to press her nose against the flimsy screen.

It is all right if I can watch her or if I can push the glass part-you know the part I pulled back for that glimmer of a breeze-she’s doing it right now as I write…

I had to close it again and make the part of the screen she can touch less than the part of her whole body.

What if?

What if I wasn’t there and kept the window all the way open?

What if she enjoyed the sun and saw fly going past her face?

What if she leaned all her considerable weight against the screen and tried to capture it?

What if that insubstantial piece of material wasn’t enough to hold her back? I don’t know how much it is supposed to hold and my super isn’t particularly helpful.

What if she dropped eight stories and died?

Because in my head I can see all of it happening.

I can picture it and describe it in minute detail as if it was a story.

No.

Let’s close the window nearly all the way and sweat a little more.

Does that ever happen to you? Your writer brain imagines all the possibilities and you do something just to stop the unlikeliest of occurrences from happening?

I find myself doing it. It’s a downside from having a detailed imagination…