Here's an insight into my life right now: my sister is standing on my doorstep clutching a dead bird, and that's not even close to the worst thing to happen today.

"Clemmie." Lil's eyes fill with easy tears, her heavy black eyeliner already beginning to smear alarmingly, as she holds up the bundle of greasy feathers. "He flew straight into my car... Do you think he'll be okay?"

I look at the bird. The very obviously dead bird.

"I don't think so, no." I am for gentle, but fall about a mile short. As I say, it's been a long day.

"For fuck's sake, Lil!" Our sister, Serena, appears at my shoulder, swigging directly from the neck of a champagne bottle she brought with her. "What are you doing with that thing? It's disgusting!"

Lil glares at Serena. "I'm trying to save it's life. Do you think you can do mouth-to-mouth on a bird?"

"Mouth-to-beak, surely?" I muse as Serena makes loud retching noises.

"I can't just let it die," Lil says again, stubbornly, and I'm standing firm in the doorway because I know that given half the chance the dead bird will end up inside my flat.

"I think that ship has sailed." Serena pokes a well-manicured finger toward the thing. "Pretty sure it's not supposed to be flat in the middle like that."

Lil looks down. "Oh," she says finally. "That's terrible."

"Yes, well, maybe you can put the dead bird down and come inside?" I suggest.

"Just leave it on the ground?" Lil is horrified.

I can already see where this is heading, and I am much too knackered to organize a bird funeral. I cast a desperate glace at Serena, who rolls her eyes in response.

"Why don't you put it in the bin?" she suggests.

"The bin?!" Lil's voice climbs to a higher pitch.

"The compost bin," Serena says quickly. "Clemmie's got about sixteen different bins, hasn't she?" She looks at me.

"There's one for garden waste." I shrug. Though "garden" is a strong term for the scrubby patch of grass that came with the flat. I always meant to plant some bulbs, had great visions of myself wafting about with a wicker basket in the crook of my arm, smiling modestly when people praised my green fingers, but there was never the time. And it didn't really matter now.

"There you go then." Serena tosses her hair. "That's perfect. You can return it to the earth." Serena is a master at getting people to do what she wants, and right now she's dropping into Lil's language, her tone persuasive.

Lil waivers. "It doesn't seem very dignified."

"It's nature, Lil." Serena waves a hand. "You know, dead in tooth and claw."

"It's red in tooth and claw," I put in. "And I don't think that getting hit by a Toyota Yaris driven by a tiny woman in an enormous pink coat was really the kind of poetic act of violence that Tennyson envisioned."

"Whatever," Serena dismisses me, getting warmed up now. "Red, dead, it's all part of the cycle, isn't it? From the earth we arise and to the earth we return, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It's the circle of life... it moves us all..."

I absolutely know she's about to break into a lusty version of the song from The Lion King, which I feel may undermine the impression she is taking this as seriously as Lil would like, and so I jump in quickly. "Come on, Lil, it's freezing out here, and there's pizza inside. Your favorite vegan pizza, and wine. Lots and lots of wine."

"Fine." Lil nods reluctantly. "But I think I should say a few words."

"Say them quickly," Serena says. "Clemmie needs us more than that dead bird does. There might still be hope for her."