Greyhound for Breakfast

not too long from now tonight will be that last time

He was walking slowly. His pace quickened then slackened once more. He stopped by the doorway of a shop and lighted a cigarette. The floor was dry, a sort of parquetry. He lowered himself down to sit on his heels, his arms folded, elbows resting on his knees, his back to the glass door.

He could have gone straight home and crept inside and into bed perhaps quietly enough not to disturb her and come morning, maybe that hour earlier than usual, and out and away, before she was awake. But why bother. He could simply not return. In this way they would simply not meet, they would not have to meet. And that would be great. He was not up to it. It was not something he felt capable of managing. It was not something he was capable of. He could not cope with it.

But why bother. If he was obliged to do certain things and then failed to do these things then that was that and nothing could be offered instead. He had always known the truth of that. Always; even though he seemed never to have given it voice. Never; especially not with her. She would never have understood.

And then there were his silences. That inability he had to get out of himself. It was not disgust, not contempt; nothing like that. It was something different altogether. But he had no wish to work out what the hell it was.

He had been trying to adapt for years. And now she was there now lying in bed sleeping or awake, about to become awake, to peer at the clockface, knowing she is not as warm as usual, because of course he is not home yet and the time, and her eyes.

He keeps imagining going somewhere else and taking a room perhaps with full board in some place far away where all the people are just people, people he does not know and has no obligation to speak to. There was something good about that. He inhaled on the cigarette then raised himself up and bent his knees a couple of times, before pacing on. After a time he slowed, but was soon walking more quickly.