the sun benign and easy-going.

To me he stood out as if his stage spotlight was slightly turned up.

Even though falling over is human and it could easily have been me skidding and flailing, I still find that I pity him. And this makes me not attracted to him anymore. Those flailing arms exposed his humanity, tragic or comic or both. He might be pretty, but he skids on ice just like the rest of us.

And then the story bursts out as if festering inside him, swelling, just waiting for the moment to pop.

for this call to end, she will have to hang up because I never will.

My ears are ringing from the loud music before and my senses feel generally overburdened.

Both our voices have that tremble you get when you’re about to cry.

The third flat we viewed, the final one before finding this place, was a souterrain with dark red walls that made walking down the stairs feel like entering someone’s stomach. The place was fuggy with garlic and cigarettes and stale wine, and when the estate agent showed us the bedroom a man flew up from a tangle of sheets like a jack-in-the-box.

July weather, sunny since dawn.