Dan Floss has papered his walls with abstract prints of multi-coloured koi. True.

Like most adults, he talks a lot about not feeling sufficiently caffeinated and how things were in his day. False.

As a child, he told his case worker that every rented family felt the same. He meant it too. True.

An initial late arrival, Dan is rarely tardy. His presence is often betrayed by his far-carrying whistle and his hair when in hurried motion; both of which resemble a sandpiper in a quandary. True.

Dan attended his only son’s kindergarten play having received the following summons.

Be there. Don’t mess it up. I mean it.

True.

Dutifully, he’d pointed an antique video recorder at Andy who was dressed as a lugubrious sunflower. The sunflower’s face was tear-stained. A cackle of small to medium-sized bullies had been told a radiographer can make shadow puppets appear in people’s brains. They had laughed and created a misunderstanding Dan could have helped with if he hadn’t been gallivanting around the hall making big talk with small-minded people. Dan didn’t notice they were enrobed in the sweet aroma of betrayal on the car ride home and even suggested a pitstop for mint chocolate chip ice cream. Andy told his mother that his father didn’t ever listen to hear him. True.

Dan did not speak in babbles and random words as most infants learn to do. Instead, his first words were a request “give it to the baba, Mama” as her tail lights became mottled by the darkness of his childhood streets and secrets. True.

The woman who gave him life absconded with a chocolatier. She was ordinary but extraordinarily beautiful–think if Cinderella had had the confidence to wear flats. False.