I summoned all my courage and went straight to the woman in charge of the volunteers and asked her opinion, begging her to tell me no if she thought I was being self-indulgent. She loved the idea and recommended that I ask the wardens if I could do the reading before the evening meeting.

Now that I knew she would say something if I didn’t, I found the courage to ask the warden. He was enthusiastic and told me to do it at the meeting, not before, so that everyone would definitely hear it.

I almost backed out. Now people didn’t have a choice but to have my reading inflicted on them. I timed the piece: ten minutes. That seemed like a long time to force a captive audience to listen. I arrived that evening early and sat in the common room staring at my feet while everyone gathered. It was all I could do to keep my breathing steady.

As dark clouds gather, discover a quiet desire for sweet cake brought on by honey-dreams of faeries and selkies. Decide that baking is the only cure for the cold damp and the senseless futility of life. Return to the wheelhouse built from the wreck of the Alice Williams just as the first cold raindrops begin to fall.

I closed my eyes as the warden explained that this evening, we had something very special because Sylvia was going to read to us. I opened my eyes and everyone was staring at me. I apologised to them. It was not a great start.

The story, I said in a quiet voice, was a bit different from normal stories. It was literary, and did not follow traditional story conventions; it didn’t have a hero or a villain or even really a plot. They furrowed their brows and looked very dubious. Somehow, the rational part of my brain managed to stop me from making more excuses: I just had to read the damn thing and get it over with.

Open the solar-powered refrigerator. Resist the temptation to rummage through other people’s baskets. Haul your treasured basket out from underneath, wondering why you keep ending up at the bottom. Consider whether this is an allegory of your life. You have butter and eggs and honey and one over-ripe banana. Return the banana to the basket. Rummage through the communal stores. You will find corn and tuna and rice and instant mashed potato; they are all useless. There is no sugar. There is one place you haven’t looked: a small white pail in the corner. As if someone predicted you would be here on this island, on this day, desperate for baked goods, hidden in the pail is a 500-gram package of self-raising flour. Claim this for your own along with four European style Mars bars which are US style Milky Ways which are what the UK call their 3 Musketeers which just confuses everyone. It has chocolate and nougat and caramel. It will do.

I felt the tension in the room change. I glanced up from my sheet. They were all still looking at me but no longer with furrowed brows. I saw people smiling and nodding. By the time I described rummaging through the refrigerator, people were laughing out loud. We’d all done it.