I don’t read a lot of climate-related fiction, probably because I am a coward. In this story, a weatherman reports on an increasingly severe climate event (it’s very wet). He clings to the live stream of a lonely goldfinch in its nest high up on a glacier as the world drowns around him. You can expect to become increasingly anxious about the safety of this lonely goldfinch, and the equally lonely weatherman, as the world becomes utterly unpredictable.

“The weatherman excuses himself and goes to the toilets. He sits in a stall and gets out his laptop and watches the goldfinch. It has all come down to this: a small bird in nest of ice, alone. Unexpectedly, he starts to cry. Why is he still presenting the weather? It is becoming hard to predict anything.”

While it’s true we’re all lonely birds, or lonely weathermen – in a nest of ice, or an eighty-six-foot wave – when the storm hits, Leeb reminds us that’s not everything we are. I love this whole collection which is no better summarised than by its title Mammals, I Think We Are Called. A whole class of individuals, each one reaching out to connect with the whole.

First published in TSS Publishing, 2018, and Sunburnt Saints: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, Seventy2One, 2021. Collected in Mammals, I Think We Are Called, Salt, 2022