As he falls, his life flashes before his nose: the blood-raw-bone-marrow succulence of the butcher’s open doorway; love letters left on lampposts; green grass, yellow grass, dew-kissed grass, sun-scorched grass, tall grass, grass cuttings; spring blossom, bruised by careless soles; crisp autumn leaves, drained of green; winter mulch; pizza crusts, kebab scraps, strawberry milkshake; morning-after pavement-Pollocks; lady dogs, boy dogs, fox dung; his armchair, his bed, Paul’s bed; Paul’s hands, Paul’s breath; and loudest of all – the sagging basket of rubber and rope shapes.

Lenny isn’t suffering from an existential crisis; he doesn’t jump because his owner is a victim of flammable-clad corporate greed; he isn’t thrown by the goon squad as retribution for an unpaid debt. Lenny the lurcher, beloved companion of Paul Stanley, leaps from the thirteenth-floor balcony of their one-bed flat in pursuit of a winged intruder.

In a desperate bid to zhuzh up the ‘veranda’ of his overpriced shoebox, Paul made himself a rooftop allotment. He may be a man of small means, but he is by no means a man of small dreams.

What he hadn’t anticipated was that he’d have to share his new botanical space with filthy pigeons. Hordes of the mangy grey menaces. He spends more time scraping shit and feathers from the tiles and railings than he does enjoying his green oasis.

This particular day, Lenny’s last, is no exception. Paul has left the patio doors open, nipping inside to get a cloth, and an opportunistic bird has flown in behind him. The poor thing, not used to small enclosed spaces, flaps furiously around the tiny flat, ricocheting off the walls. Lenny, being Lenny, thinks this is a fun new game.

He leaps, springs, and bounces around after the flapping foundling, like a tot on a trampoline. Paul grabs a mop and uses it to guide the bird back through the doors.

This is successful in returning the creature to its natural habitat. But alas, Lenny follows, bounding after his new playmate. The pigeon alights for a brief moment on the railing… before taking off, into the dawn of Lenny’s final day.

As Lenny launches himself over the barrier, Mrs Cartwright, the old dear who lives on the fourth floor and sometimes rubs Lenny’s ears with hands that smell of Palma Violet talc mingled with Ralgex and the kippers she habitually eats for breakfast, has just stepped out of the front entrance into the street below.

The only thing that flashes before her eyes before she dies is too much Lenny.