The waitress thanked the living shit out of me and insisted that I have a great day, a great one, one of the top hundred days of the ten-thousand seven-hundred and thirty-six-ish experienced so far, three-thousand five-hundred and fifty-eight-ish of which you've pretty much just slept through, you cocky slob, she almost said, and turned towards the kitchen. I looked at her spine and said thanks and walked out with a double espresso twitching against my hangover. The words great day glided into my mind's eye in birthday-banner colours and danced while I looked for somewhere to relieve the despair of standing up and having to navigate through people and their lives and hats. I sat in the park and leaned against a tree that knew nothing of my predicament and tried to read. But the words in the book were moving far too quickly, while great day'd moved in closer to inflict a sickeningly jovial rhumba. I shut the book and closed my eyes and breathed through my nose and exuded slime into my best clothes. I wondered if this counted as meditation. And I thought I should really maybe make the effort again, really again, beyond just a book and one attempt again. Get absolutely off my swede on calmness. And it might help with one or some or all of the things I need help with. And it might make the walls of the house seem further apart. If I can make it back there without dying of agitation.
A breeze cooled the slime and I was seized by a non-specific shame-and-terror or the caffeine kicked in. I stood up and went to a bar and after a lot of humming ordered a soft drink with gin in it.
