Fiction...

The Review section sat, unopened, beside his empty coffee cup. He thought about having a shower then glanced back at the paper and picked it up. Arturo Pizaro was on the cover. As if a full-page advert on the back last week wasn't enough. He opened the paper and began to read. And then there were tears in his eyes and he had to fold the paper quickly and get into the shower right away, but his wife had noticed his crumpled face and was already asking...

"Frustration" he heard as he closed the bathroom door and lost himself beneath the savage heat, felt the fierce rain against his skin, washed the dirt of self-indulgence from his face murmuring "Money money money it's always money how do you get it through your dumb head?" And when he shaved he was still angry and sad and angry at himself for being sad and so he dragged the skin-thin blade without a care, knowing he was wide open and bleeding and still he kept at it and finally felt better, dabbing the red with tissue that stuck in the cuts and had to be washed away a few minutes later.

Brake on. Ignition. A little gas. The engine refused to fire. It tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed and he saw the curtains twitch, felt the neighbour's gaze and so he stopped and sat there. He remembered seeing a deep-sea diver finish a marathon years ago on the Mall and he felt just as ridiculous, just as far removed from the correct context but so much less heroic. So he raised his eyes to the sky and stared into the blue for a while. When he tried it again the scooter started. It always seemed to start at the very last moment and in this he found some consolation.