It's 12.40am and I'm still at work. After 11pm it didn't matter anymore. It's been a long day; it's been a long couple of days. I've been smoking too much, way too much.
*
In between meetings I checked my phone and saw a missed call. I went outside for a cigarette. On the white chair, facing the plot of overgrown grass and an old tree. I called back, it was an old college mate. He called to tell me that a friend of ours had died in a road accident. At first I didn't quite get the name. Then all I could coax out of my mouth was a line of nonsensical expletives. No, we weren't very close at all. But it doesn't matter does it.
*
A strange skin of stillness and mutedness stretched over Duxton Hill. He fell asleep while riding home.
*
I went to bed at about 3. When I got home my mascara had run, leaving a slate-grey shadow below my eyes. The flatmate came out to see if I was ok. She asked a few times, then left me when she sensed my sheer exhaustion.
*
There are nights I'm so tired I just want to bury myself in the duvet and not have to make any form of conversation. And there are nights I'm so tired but all I want to hear is a voice on the other end. While riding home in a cab I flicked through my phone to see who I could call. I put the phone back into my bag and looked out of the window instead.
*