Shaun tipped the bottle of Louis Latour, Meursault, 2004, two hundred-year-old sherry. It dripped over the squirming snail, and it promptly stopped moving.

He picked up the stiletto, his wife’s favourite shoe, and cracked the shell of the snail.

Julie, beloved Julie, if only they’d not drank so much of the sherry – she wouldn’t have fallen off the uncanny raft.

Just a little he thought. It can’t hurt. He chipped a small piece of the raft with the pink heel, like an axe.

He crumbled a pinch of gorgonzola over the grey delicacy.

His mouth watered. He munched, enjoying the flavours and licking slime from his fingers.

The only survivors of the ship Delicate, trading in giant cheese, sunk by a freak storm. Correction, only him now – he shouldn’t have taken his wife with him. A bad idea maybe ... but they’d spent so much time apart. It seemed like the best option to save their marriage.

Sharks everywhere, Julie wouldn’t have known. She was so drunk.

Shaun pulled his stumpy legs closer to his body as more of his raft crumbled into the sea. It was crumbling faster. At first it was a little piece every day.

He shifted his heavy frame to ease the aching in his old hips, and dribbled sherry over another snail. Five snails left, half a bottle of vintage, not a bad life for a sailor.