Writers in this issue

Joe

Kirsty Logan

Robert

Grant Jennings

Cee

Stewart

Editor

Joe

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Write What You Know - Joe

Alan was hungover, but he was trying, and he was happy that he was trying. There was even some form of agonising over the venue when the first choice proved to be far too busy for flirtatious conversation. Changing from the popular coffee shop to the friendly bar seemed to show some sort of caring on his part at least. He didn’t like the bar, but he still sat in it and read a short story book after she texted him saying she’d be ten minutes late. He was determined in making sure that things went right that day. He wanted to get this dating lark right. When she arrived she had already bought him a beer. Alan eyed it suspiciously and she explained it was a Tennants because she didn’t know what beer to get him and Tennants is always a safe guess. He laughed and nodded, not saying that the reason he eyed it was to weigh up the odds of whether his stomach could handle it. Taking the gamble with a sip he went through the routine of hi-how-are-you’s and yeah-I’m-doing-good’s while his stomach churned but otherwise behaved. They spoke steadily for the first ten minutes or so. The conversation was pleasant and easy yet left Alan feeling bored and slightly uncomfortable. He could tell already that the date wouldn’t amount to anything; they were just too different people. He liked films with memorable quotes and she liked films with memorable clichés. But still, they were having a conversation and Alan tried his best to grab on to

this fleeting moment of human interaction, to savour the experience however doomed the end result may be. And besides, if she was into him then he could score a lay before parting ways, for which he only held a little hope for. Alan’s churning insides suddenly lurched and his bladder twisted into a tight knot. He excused himself and headed downstairs, washing his face with cold water after relieving himself. He wiped his face with some paper towels and examined it, noting how overly tired he looked. Too bad, not much he could do about that. As he pulled at the skin on his face his phone beeped, and there sat a message from the girl upstairs. “Omg on that date with Alan from Arches. complete weirdo!x” It was a joke. It must’ve been a joke. Alan gave his reflection a look and thought… no, it was a joke. She’d be sitting there at the table with a coy little smile and her phone in her hand. He made his way back to the table, holding his phone and smiling uncertainly. She smiled back, but her phone was busy being pushed back into her purse. “Thanks for the text,” he said, sitting down. “What text?” He smiled more, still uncertain, “The text you sent me when I was in the toilet. You know, pretending you meant to send it to a friend and all that. Like, a joke.” She looked worried and pulled her phone back out her purse. She looked from her phone to him to her phone and finally back to him. “I’m so sorry.”

Many things ran through Alan’s head at this point. In half a moment his mind had sorted through all the different reactions he could employ, but two solid facts flashed hard and clear in his forethought; he still had half a pint of beer left and he was not going to get laid that night. “I’m going to let you stew in this for a moment. I’ll give you time for a quick breath, you know, just so you can really grasp the awkwardness of the situation.” He looked her up and down, taking a sip from his pint, counting to ten in his head. “Ok, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to sit here and finish my beer. You can go if you want.” She didn’t answer. She just sat. “I have one quick question though,” he couldn’t resist, “what was your excuse? Your getaway?” She managed to look at him briefly, very briefly. “I wasn’t, um, I wasn’t going to do that.” “Hmm.” They sat in complete silence. Alan thought of remarking how hilarious the whole situation was, but he realised quite quickly that it wasn’t hilarious, it wasn’t even a damned bit funny. It was fucking depressing is what it was, but all he could do was laugh because, well, what else could he do? He finished his beer with a satisfying gulp and waggled his eyebrows at her, “See you around.” “Actually, I think I’ll go too,” she said anxiously. “You have half a bottle of beer left,” Alan pointed out. “Not thirsty.” Alan shrugged and left the table, the girl following

behind. The stopped at the door and shared an awkward handshake. “We should do this again sometime,” Alan said turning and leaving without acknowledging her reply. When he realised his hangover was gone he added a small, almost imperceptible, skip to his step and fingered the coins in his pocket. He considered buying a book or a DVD, but instead decided to buy a fresh pack of cigarettes to add to the half pack he already had on him, just so he could sit all day the next day and smoke without needing to leave his flat.

dear creatures - Kirsty Logan

i was in the bath reading a library book of adrienne rich poems (plastic cover buckling from steam) and watching my skin turn red (strange colours under smudging tattoos) and drinking cheap red wine (teeth filtering cork cos we had to bash it in with a screwdriver) while my girlfriend listened to her band's 4-track demo on repeat which i'd told her was like wanking in front of the mirror but it didn't matter cos all i could hear was the sirens echoing through the air conditioning vents.

and i was thinking about when we first got together, how i couldn't stop thinking about her hands (so small and always fidgeting, picking at the edges of the menu and twisting her rings and untying and retying her shoelaces), those nights when i told my friends i was going out for a smoke but went to the club where she worked and found her still hanging around even though she'd finished hours ago and she kissed me in the street (both of us rain-drenched and shivering in our t-shirts), and how i fell in love with her when she told me she collected fruit stickers in a little notebook because her uncle and grandpa did.

i must have dozed off cos the bathwater was goosebumping me and the skin on my soles felt too tight and the pages were glued mothwing-thin to my sternum when my girlfriend shouted baby come and see this so i climbed out

and dripped onto the carpet while she held my pruned hand and we stood at the window and watched two girls kick the shit out of each other in the street three floors down. we stayed there for a long time until we heard the sirens echoing through the air conditioning vents.

Matter Over Mind - Rob

Father Hermes walked down the street, his mind at ease and his body the same. Though he knew it wasn’t so, it still seemed to him that at this moment all things in the world were as they should be, and while time might change this, such challenges could be comfortably met head on. He rounded the corner and stepped into the sunlight that bathed this street. Yes, this moment would stay with him, tucked away like a secret book in a library. It was then that he felt pain in the back of his skull, and the sunbeams turned dark. Delicately Father Hermes lifted the lid off the tea pot and pulled out the bag, squeezing the last strains of flavour that remained. While normally he would have simply left it in, liquid refused to exit the spout of this particular pot as long as the teabag remained inside. “Milk?” he asked his guest. “No thank you Father, I prefer it black.” “Do you get Black tea?” Father Hermes muttered as he awoke. He blinked several times, each bringing his surroundings more into focus. It looked like some sort of hospital room, with various medical supplies and instruments dotted around, and it certainly had that clinical smell which he would associate with such places. He tried to raise his body for a better look, only to find he was bound down to the bed on which he lay. A voice came over, and with it the pain in Father

Hermes’ head resurfaced. “That wasn’t much of an ice breaker” it said. Father Hermes tried to turn his head towards this voice, but it too was tied down. “Hello?” he said. “Are you a doctor? Am I in hospital?” “I’m a surgeon,” the man, yes the voice was definitely male, replied. “And this is my operating theatre.” “Is anything wrong with me?” “Yes, but don’t worry. I’m going to fix you.” Father Hermes thought about the pain in his head. “What happened? Did I fall?” “Yes Father.” The steps came closer, and from the corner of his left eye Father Hermes saw a large syringe being drawn from a pocket like a sword. The surgeon inserted it into Father Hermes neck, who let out a cry of pain. “You’re lying,” he said, feeling things drift and slip. “A man in your profession should be used to that,” said the surgeon. Darkness. “Let’s swap hats!” shouted Hermes, as he ran around, playing in the back garden with Julius, the child from next door. “I dunno,” said Julius. “My dad says the Kippah isn’t a toy.” “Come on, don’t be dull. I’ve never worn one before.” Hermes took off his own flat cap and handed it to Julius, who took it grudgingly. “That’s because you’re not Jewish,” he said. Yet he handed over his skull cap willingly enough.

Promptly Hermes donned it. “Well now I am!” he declared happily. “Now I can celebrate Hanukah and Christmas.” And with that he started dancing a wild jig. “Hermes!” an angry voice called “What on earth are you doing!?” Hermes’ Father strode down the lawn to him. “Take that off this instant!” Not even pausing he tore the skull cap from Hermes head. “I’m sorry father!” Hermes squealed as he was dragged inside. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m…” “Sorry!” He awoke on the table. The pain in his head was gone now, along with something else, but what it was Hermes couldn’t think. “Do you say something foolish every time you awake?” the surgeon asked, but then went on. “No matter, just tell me how you feel right now.” Confused as he was, Hermes obeyed. “I feel fine, except I also feel…empty somehow. I can’t describe it…it’s like something I’ve always had without even knowing it is now lost.” “Hmm, how about that,” said the surgeon. He undid the braces which had held Hermes down, who immediately raised his hands to his temples, which felt fat and itchy. It was then that he touched the stitches. “What have you done to me!?” Hermes asked, fear and anger rising, fighting each other for control. “I’ve fixed you,” said the surgeon. “Just as I said I would.” He looked at Hermes uncomprehending face. “Very well, I can see such succinct explanations aren’t to

your liking, so I shall start at the very beginning.” The surgeon began pacing the room slowly, looking over his instruments. “The French Philosopher Voltaire once wrote that if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him. His argument was that man needed someone higher to answer to, that we need the fear of judgment in order to limit the evil of our actions.” Here the surgeon stopped, and turned to face Hermes. “I take a very contrary view. I know that God exists, and as such I see it as necessary to kill him.” He began pacing again. “But how to go about such an impossible task? In the 1980’s a famous neurological experiment was carried out with electromagnetic energy. By use of a special helmet that sent out weak yet complex magnetic fields to the frontal lobes of the brain, scientists were able to induce states of religious euphoria upon anyone who wore it. Even the staunchest of atheist walked away thinking they had experienced the very will of God.” He approached Hermes. “Wouldn’t that have been a handy thing for your sermons? “Desperate to find out the cause, more experiments were conducted with this so called “God Helmet” and it was later revealed that all such spiritual feelings are derived from a very particular, very small, area of the left hemisphere. This part of the brain, nicknamed “Heavens gate” has no other purpose but that of belief in a higher power. Which raises the question-what happens when you remove it?”

He stroked Hermes hair tenderly, tracing the stitches along his temples with a long delicate finger. “Of course not any old person would do. You would need a man of deep spiritual convictions, one who studied and spoke to and with all his heart and…mind believed in God. A man of faith. A man very much like you, Hermes.” At this the Surgeon broke off and pulled a small test tube from his jacket. “Hmm, how ironic. Did you know that Hermes is the Patron Saint of mental illness?” Hermes looked at the test tube held up before him. Inside was a small greyish lump. “This is all that God is,” the surgeon said. “One grain of flesh. No more. No less.” He raised it up, and poured its contents into his mouth. Hermes watched in horror as the surgeon closed his eyes and worked the lump around his mouth. He swallowed. “Why?“ said Hermes “Why do this? What could have happened to you to make you so?” “I am only what God has made me. You could never understand.” Hermes looked at him sadly. “I understand that God will forgive you.” “And I will forget him,” the surgeon replied, drawing out his needle and again stabbing it into Hermes. No dreams. Only Black. Hermes awoke, saying nothing. He was exactly where he had been on the street, and it seemed that even those very same sunbeams still bore down on him. He wondered if the

whole thing had been imagined, and with fear and doubt he raised his hands to his temples, searching for the stitches. A young woman approached him and knelt down. “Oh my God. Are you ok? Do you need an ambulance? Tell me how you feel?” “I don’t know,” said Hermes.

Walk - Grant Jennings

By time I decided to go for a walk, it was already 4.30 in the morning. I like walking at night; it clears the head. The streets are empty and as silent as a churchyard and the only sound you’re likely to hear is the sound of your own footsteps. That night, the rain was beating down, but there was next to no wind. Perfect weather. I sat on the couch as I laced up my shoes and I grabbed my jacket from the hall before heading out the door. I started taking these walks around a year ago, around the time my wife died. Everyone said that I was taking things remarkably well – almost too well – but I didn’t know how else to react. Sure, if asked beforehand, I might have expected my reaction to be a little more dramatic, but I can’t complain. Maybe it’s because I knew it was coming. I don’t know. By time she was diagnosed, it was too late to really do anything. I took the time off work and we holidayed together in Europe. She died a few weeks later. At first, she wanted to die at home, but just before the end she changed her mind. I’m not sure why. Maybe she didn’t want me to think of the house as some kind of mausoleum. At the funeral, I was the most composed person in the whole family; the rest sat snivelling into their handkerchiefs like schoolchildren sat out in the cold. After me and the other pallbearers lay the coffin at the front, we sat and listened to her favourite song. It was a lovely service; there must have been at least two hundred people there. It was a

secular service and she was cremated as per her wishes. She never specified what we should do with her ashes, so I scattered them on a beach not far from where we lived. I didn’t like keeping them in the urn. It didn’t seem fair. The rain was really lashing down now. I could feel my trousers sticking to my legs as I walked. The sky was more blue than black and I thought it must be turning into morning. Real morning, I mean. Maybe not, though. I could still see the stars. After a while the wind had eased and the rain slowed to a gentle tapping. I can’t explain it. So long as I kept walking, I felt like I was doing something. Going somewhere. Where, I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s very important. I’m not the sort of person that likes to sit around doing nothing; I like to keep myself busy. I give myself little projects to fill my days with when I can’t think of anything else to do. Cut the grass, maybe, or stop that door from squeaking. But at night, when I can’t sleep, all I want to do is walk. For hours, sometimes. I must’ve been out for at least that long, I thought. Either way, all that mattered is that I kept on walking. The sun was starting to come up, which made me wonder just how long I’d been walking for. I never wore a watch as I rarely found myself anywhere that didn’t have a clock at hand. What startled me the most is where I ended up. I was only a couple of minutes away from the beach. I heard the sea before I realised where I was, but the thought of it didn’t seem to process. I hadn’t even noticed it had stopped raining. When I arrived at the

beach, the tide had all but lowered and the horizon looked like the spilled innards of a lava lamp. I walked along the promenade a little before leaning against the barrier. I looked up and down but I couldn’t remember where I had scattered the ashes. I guess it didn’t really matter. I pulled down the hood of my jacket and I breathed in the fresh sea air. It was pretty cold but I liked how it felt. After a while I decided to hop over the barrier. I took off my soaked shoes and sodden socks and I rolled my trousers to the knee before walking down to the water. The sand was still damp from the rain and the sea but it was still fine and granular. I picked up a handful and I let it sift through my fingers as it blew away in the wind. I sat down and tied the laces of my shoes together and I stuffed the socks into them before hanging them around my neck. I ambled down toward the water and I let it wash over my bare feet. It was deathly cold. Still, I stood there, splashing my feet like a child in summer. I took off my jacket and I dropped it onto the sand and it blew away like a polystyrene bag as I held my arms aloft, feeling the wind and the spray of the sea whip at my face. Before long I walked along the beach to get my jacket and I walked back to where I’d hopped over. I sat on a bench and I looked out at the sea and the rising sun and it’s only then when I realised just how much I missed my wife. She would have loved this place, I thought. I don’t know why we didn’t come here before. I started to cry, but above all I was pretty thankful. Now this place has meaning. After a while I stood up and I walked barefoot

along the promenade, whistling her favourite song, trying to remember the way home.

Another Friday night on FacyB - Cee

I’m picking flakes of tobacco off my tongue. Due to mistake in my translation I am sans filtres. What a waste. But with every drag I’m picking flakes of tobacco off my tongue and I cannot be dealing with that. It’s a distraction. I’m stinking up my room, just burning down the stinking cigarette. My hair, I’m thinking, is soaking it all up like a giant filter. When I wash it I’ll face a wave of old smoke and sour perfume. That’ll be tomorrow when I locate new smells, flake the dried in lipstick off my lips and examine how far across my face the eyeliner smeared during the night. Less panda, more racoon. But it’s Friday night now and through the sheer apathy that’s keeping me from even masturbating, I’m watching other people update their lives on Facebook. To be fair I was working earlier. To be fairer, I am now a little drunk. And I can find out what’s everybody in the city is up to from the comfort of my own bed. I don’t need to find my phone and waste my free texts on shit like what’s happening how’s it going what’s up alright love what’s the chat? I don’t really care. And I don’t want to agonise waiting for a response. These cigarettes tasted better in France. Smelt better too. They’re out of context in my bedroom. There’s a regular pack somewhere in my bag but if I get up for them I may as well get my phone and I just don’t care enough to do that. I know exactly what everybody I know is doing anyway, I know that most of them are out getting wasted but still talking the

same old shit, just progressively misspelled throughout the night. Thank you for telling me how drunk you are right now, as you will tell me how hungover you are tomorrow. Thank you for telling me that you quite fancied some toast but you’re out of bread. And you are in a relationship, now single, suddenly it’s complicated, bet she likes that one. Do I want to join a group to prove how powerful the social voice is in liking a cabbage more than Cheryl Cole? Do I want that thing we all kinda like to change back to the way we remember liking it better? Join if you think Starbursts should be called Opal Fruits again. This kills maybe twenty minutes. I’m thinking about calling somebody, wondering if it’s past ten yet or if I can make it to the shop and if I can be arsed getting up and putting on some damn clothes to make it to the shop. All this is happening when somebody writes on my wall. And there’s a small thrill, I won’t deny it. Oh, somebody said something to me in plain sight of everybody else. How special. And it’s three fucking little words. Not the tired throwaway ones that I could spitefully condemn to greeting cards. No, no. It’s I miss you. I miss you. Right there under my tired profile picture. That’s no help to me. That’s a whole night wasted ahead thinking about why and how and do I miss you back? And why couldn’t it be said privately, personally anyway? It’s a proclamation to torture me. And I miss the sadistic bitch. There’s a gaping aching space where she ought to be and other pathetic thoughts I’m not going into just now. It can be a year or a month or whatever, but you leave somebody and you’re not supposed

to miss them. Too hard if you do. Look forward, man. Next conquest. Next challenge. Not I miss you, late on a Friday night when you’re too bored to masturbate and too lazy to get drunk. And I think, shit. Shit. The bitch with her curls to drown in, which isn’t a great image I know but it’s what I said the first time I met her, she’s only gone and broken my goddamn heart. I don’t think I even knew that when she left in the first place. And now, too far away for me to contact her, to see her and hold her and ask her what all this means, she’s writing I miss you on my wall.

And that, my unaccepted friend, is why I don’t feel like networking socially with you today.

People’s Places - Stewart

It was dinner time in the Russell household. The scrapes of forks and knives on plates, the slow and careful chewing, the bang of fists on the table when the chewing or the scraping was too loud. That was the only talking done. Russell Senior ate the loudest but there was no-one to tell him to be quiet. Also seated at the table is his bag-eyed wife, Moira, along with their two children. The eldest is a boy, called Jack of all things, and he is eating fast, so fast that he seems to grow and grow before the old man’s hawkish eyes. The younger is a girl, Dorothy, and she eats in tiny bites and pecks. When the plates are cleared from the table her head is still down, wrung hands in her lap, and staring at the vacant spot her plate had been. “Dot,” says Russell Senior, to his daughter, and he tosses his soiled handkerchief onto the dinner table that his wife is clearing. He gets up and thuds off out into the hall and then up the stairs. Thump. Thump. Thump. Dorothy, head still down, slips from her chair and quietly follows out after him. Jack takes his cleared plate to the sink, where his mother clatters dishes together, with no water. “Let me help,” says Jack softly. He takes his mother by the elbows and walks her back to the table, sitting her down in a chair. His father is upstairs so it is okay. He goes back to the sink and turns the faucet on. Cold water blasts over the plates and pretty soon a filth of fragments and grease

fills the sink, swimming round their plates. Jack starts to scrub the dishes. Behind him, his mother rattles out a confused ditty on the table with her fingers, and there are hollow beats where her nails are torn. Upstairs, it is carefully quiet.

***Jack had a place. It was in the town park near the house, on the very edges of a controlled forest that used to be part of a greater one on the north-side of the park grounds. This place of his was in the wilder side of the park, where nobody went. Jack liked to explore out and away from home. The adventures in his head were malleable, and could be made to go away if you needed them to. The place was sheltered by the lean of old trees and the press of untended hedges. It had been a public toilet before it had been closed with two long boards of ageing plywood to wall off the entrance. All the fittings inside were gone, but the stone was still there, and inside this concrete den snaked the ivy and the moss and the bugs. Jack throws his ball up over the wall and then clambers up himself using a box as a boost, hooking his leg up, and then sliding over the wall to drop down into this place that he had. Inside was everything he felt he needed. A small box that he used to get out again also served as a seat, and as a dry place to keep his weathering magazines, books, and comics. There was a half-full bottle of fizzy juice gone flat in the corner, with empties lying all around.

There was a long-legged spider creeping about in the upper corner, above the concrete imprints of where the stiles had been. Its web was thick, and it sat still inside it, as if scheming. Jack came here nearly every day, except Sundays, with his un-kicked football tucked under his arm. His father had caught him reading books once, in the house, and now Jack knew better than to keep his books where his old man might find them. He’d only managed to save a few from the bin, and he had read them over and over until they had become his new favourites. Jack’s football lay still, but not out of sight, on the floor. He brought out the crate and fished his favourite book out, then sat down on the crate which creaked brokenly under his weight. It was a children’s book of all things that was his favourite. It was the kind of book that would have made his father go white in the face if he ever caught him reading it. It was ‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe’ by C.S. Lewis. He was near the end of the book again. His end, not the end of the book. Jack had only read the entire book, and the very last pages, once. He would always stop just before the end, when Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy were still royalty, still in their adventure, and still not children. The book, as far as Jack was concerned, ended there for him. In that ending, there was no going home.

***

Jack came home late again that night, with mud artfully smeared here and there on the knees of his trousers and face. Running home instead of walking made him sweat too, and the effect looked authentic. His mother unlatched the door but wasn’t there when it opened. Jack took off his shoes and trudged in over the patio. Inside, he put his muddied shoes in their basket, the clean ball still tucked under his arm. He went into the kitchen, where his father was reading the newspaper. It rattled as he folded it and put it on the table. He looked his exhausted son up and down. Then he closed his eyes and took his glasses off, tucking them into his shirt pocket. Jack dropped the ball. Which was clean. It bounced all around the kitchen. In the sitting room, Jack’s mother turned up the television set.

Cold Stare - Joe

He’d be less of a nuisance if his eyes weren’t stuck open. If his eyes could close then I wouldn’t get such a fright when I woke in the night. They’re just staring at me. God, it’s creepy just thinking about it. At least I managed to get the arm jammed in there good. I kept tripping over it, and at night the streelight outside my window made it look like it was reaching out to grab me, crawling out the wardrobe. If Warren had managed a few more sit ups in the morning then I would’ve been able to get the door shut, but he had enough belly when I killed him to make it a problem. I didn’t mean to kill him. Not really. It was just one of those moments where you look at your big brother and want to kill him, like really want to kill him, but then you realise how stupid that is and hide his x-box controller instead. Then one time I had a big bottle of vodka in my hand and my arm seemed to jerk all by itself. There was hardly any blood, but I freaked out anyway. After I calmed down I realised the irony of the situation; he had been telling me that I drank too much, that alcohol would be the thing that killed me one day. I tried not to laugh as I put his body in the wardrobe, honestly I tried. I kept the window open despite the snow. I knew he wasn’t leaving for a while and I didn’t want him to stink up the place too much while he was here. Now his face is pasty grey, still frozen in that indignant, dumbfounded look. I don’t mind that. If I’m going to be

honest, it’s the eyes that get me the most. They looked so empty, but they seemed to focus on me the whole time. I was going to put sunglasses on him, but I only had one pair and they were my favourite. I tried angling a hat on his head so the brim just managed to cover his eyes, but it looked ridiculous. Funny, but ridiculous. At night I’d wrap myself up in a few extra jackets and socks to protect myself from the cold, but even then I slept fitfully. Every time I woke up he’d be there, staring at me. It was after a week of haphazard sleep that things started becoming weird. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and swear I could see the condensation plume from that confounded mouth. My skin would feel the pressure of fingers through several layers of warm synthetics and I’d be restless the whole night. I’d look at him in the morning and his fingers would be poking round the edge of the door, holding it closed. I swear sometimes when I woke up he’d be smiling. I could handle that though. I couldn’t sleep, so I must’ve been seeing things. But the eyes, god, the eyes got to me. The way they stared was bad enough, but when they followed me it was a different story. I thought I was imagining that too, but then I took pictures. I took pictures from different angles, and in each one the eyes were looking at me, straight at me. I couldn’t be imagining that. I’d pace the room, back and forth, watching his eyes as they followed me, back and forth, his breath misting in the cold. I’d try forcing the door shut, using all my strength to push it

closed, but his arm was too jammed in there and I couldn’t move it an inch. His eyes watched me the whole time, laughing. So I ran. I left the flat and the city and headed away as far as I could. I could barely sleep on the journey. When I hit Lands End I found an abandoned building and slept for a long time, days maybe. It took me a while, but now I have a new job with a new identity, and a good room in a crappy building. Warren’s here too. He’s poking his head out of the wardrobe, fingers wrapped round the door and breath misting. I don’t mind that, I can handle that, it’s just those fucking eyes I can’t stand.