Eric was depressed. He sat in a large cafe in the early morning sunlight. The background soundtrack was cheesy soul music. He found the music irritating and mindless. He was the only person in the large space. He could hear the hiss of the coffee machine and the chatter of the kitchen staff down the corridor. He didn't want a croissant.
'Today, nothing is going to happen,' Eric thought as he idly flicked the frond of a plastic palm tree. He looked up at some oval framed Victorian prints of monkeys, on the wall in front of him.
'I think that's a lemur,' he said to himself.
Eric wanted to curl up with a lemur, halfway up a tree in an ancient forest. He wished he had a long elegant tail and silky fur. He imagined the perfect bounce from branch to branch. He heard the call of birds of paradise. He smelt perfume and felt the warm air.
'I like lemurs,' thought Eric.
The music changed. An old song he had heard many times.
'Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine...'
'The lemur chewed tobacco on the the old tram line...' thought Eric.
'The line broke...'
'The lemur got choked...'
He finished his cappuccino.
Eric went to heaven in a little row boat.