Skirting the edge of nowhere, the day dissolves like a dream upon waking as the beads of rain clinging to the window remind me of everything I’ve lost. Or, more accurately, everything I want but can’t have. It’s cold, and the heat from the radiator doesn’t get close to warming my bones. Instead, it escapes through the cracks in the walls and the hole in the ceiling that lets all the water in. I think I’ve got trench foot. Perhaps salmonella. I heard that weightlifters drink raw eggs, so I gave it a go myself and haven’t felt right ever since. On the table, surrounded by dogs, the flame from a scented candle dances this way and that. Watching it intently, I wish for it to extinguish, but it does no such thing, so I have to crawl to it on my hands and knees, at which point I blow it out with a lungful of dusty air. On the doorstep, light from the giant rock in the sky reflects into my weary eyes. The hangover isn’t much, but it’s enough. The walk into town usually takes less than fifteen minutes, but today, it takes longer. If I wanted, I could try and journey to where you live. I don’t think I’d get that far, though. I remember the general area, but it’s been so long that no doubt the streets would all blur into one long, continuous maze, especially in this light. Still, I guess I could give it a try. It would make a change from the usual steps I take. Although the sky is clear and shines as bright as the moon, there are no stars, only my memories of you, twisting in my guts like a shard of glass—a painful reminder that one day we lose all that we ever gain.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US