53.

I wake because of several things: my mouth’s so dry, the bed’s unfamiliar (and so are all the sounds around me), and there’s this dread that pokes in from last night – so many things are a blur, I’m not sure (and can’t be sure) I didn’t fuck up in some way.

That’s drinker’s remorse – that panic that arises in the vacuum of the haze that I’ve done something wrong, that I’ve lost my wallet or something else important, or maybe there’s something that I simply can’t remember, and won’t remember, until cops or somebody comes calling.

But some things piece together quickly: Stan, drinking, strip club, stripper’s house, and blacking out.

And, oh, there’s a stripper sleeping next to me.

Rachel.

Last night I thought she was in her early twenties, but that was through the filter of alcohol, dim lighting, and idealism. She’s older than that. I’m shit with estimates, but I’d say in her mid thirties – her face has the weight of somebody who’s lived through shit, and it’s worn on her, but that gives her character. She’s topless, the hem of the quilt resting across her belly.

I ease myself out of bed, conscious of how much the mattress creaks. I’m just in my underwear, so she must’ve undressed me. We definitely didn’t have sex. I think I’d remember not remembering that – and doubtful we would’ve and that I would’ve put my underwear back on.

My clothes are folded neatly on the floor in the corner. I dress quietly, but some part of me tells me I should just stay in bed and wait until she wakes, although I think her being there and me being there is a matter of convenience, that there’s no other bed, and she couldn’t possibly be attracted to some old guy who pretty much passed out on her, and slipping out is the best way to avoid further embarrassment.

Dressed, I slip out of the bedroom – there’s no sign of Suzy, nor Stan, and although I’m half tempted to search for other bedrooms and peek in to see if he’s here, decide that’d serve no purpose. It’s not like him being here is going to keep me here.

The door unlocks easily enough, but I’m conscious how hard I have to pull it to ensure that it locks behind me. The clunk of the wood in the jamb and the deadbolt snapping into place would echo, although I think it’s even earlier than I thought it was.

Patting my pockets (and fleetingly worrying that I’ve left my phone in there) I find it in my jacket and see it’s 5.55am – I thought it was at least a couple of hours after that.

But it’s enough for me. I’m on my way.

Where?

I don’t know.

But summoning an Uber, I decide it’s time to go home.

54.

Once I get home, I undress, crawl back into bed, and sleep fitfully until just after midday. Then it’s not so much wanting to get out of bed, but needing to adhere to the routine of life. One thing about big nights out is they take up a lot of time – not just the night itself, but the recovery time.

My phone rings starts vibrating on my bedside drawer. I pick it up, and for a moment – before I see the face of it – I worry it’ll be Dennis again, telling me that Autumn’s died, or it’ll Lana with some last-minute recrimination, but it’s Stan. This could be an equally painful conversation. I debate sticking the phone back on the bedside drawer, but decide he’s probably just trying to find out what happened to me.

“Hey,” I say.

“Where’d you get to?” Stan asks. “Everybody woke up and you were gone.”

“I thought I’d go home – I had stuff to do.”

“Stuff? What stuff?”

“You know – typical housework stuff, groceries, that shit.”

“You gave up waking up next to a stripper to buy your groceries?”

“I don’t think she was interested in me.”

“I wasn’t suggesting marrying her,” Stan says. “Just fuck her. She would’ve fucked you.”

I don’t know that – like, I know Stan’s telling me, and it’s a likely transaction in the world of hook-ups, but I can neither read that stuff, nor deliver the payout. I get too twisted up with somebody familiar like Lana. How the fuck do I contend with some confident bombshell?

“She asked about you,” Stan says.

“She did?”

And this is my naivety and stupidity and all the adjectives in between, because I romanticise something meaningful, some relationship that’s born out of this meeting, and she’ll be this sitcom girlfriend from the 1960s where women existed only to complement their partner. I don’t know why that narrative keeps bubbling up, and something simpler, something more macho, doesn’t, like fucking for the sake of fucking, and doing as much of it as possible.

“Nah.” Stan laughs. “But listen to how hopeful you got. What the fuck are you doing? You’ve got it made.”

I sit up in bed. “Got it made?”

“Your single, you don’t have ties to any exes with kids, you’ve got some minor celebrity—”

“I’ve got two books about two people read.”

“But nobody knows that. Fuck. You don’t like what you’ve got, go change it.”

“I can’t just change the books I’ve had published—”

“I’m not talking about that. Go write something different. Whinge about your job, go do something else. Or fuck off. Take a holiday. You’re the only one stuck in what you’re doing.”

He’s right.

And I think, Fuck it.

I haven’t been so spontaneous since … well, last night, but before that since I was much younger. That makes me wonder when I became so regimented, so caught in habits that they became the framework of my existence. Even these cycles are another habit.

It’s fucking life.

Society.

The world.

It’s all frameworks within frameworks within frameworks: years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds, all compartmentalising our life into this complicated segmentation: hours we study or work, time we spend with our partner or kids, times we eat, times we spend recreationally, times we spend on maintenance like eating and washing and exercising, time we sleep –  this is nothing profound; people smarter than me have thought it.

But it makes me think to fuck with work tomorrow. For what? To have Melody Merlo condescend to me, some ungrateful pretentious literary flea who’s lucked into some element of success?

I’m more loathe to give up my meeting with Regina because I’m still stubborn enough to think my writing could go somewhere, but that’s not for a few days – I can see how feel closer to the date.

“You still there?” Stan asks.

“I’m thinking about what you said.”

“Don’t think. Do. Anyway, I just rang to see if you were okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

It’s only minutes after he hangs up that he sends me a message: Go to this thing. Then there’s a link. It’s to a speed dating event Tuesday night – sign up, sit with a person, chat for fifteen minutes, then move onto the next person. Eight people all up. Walk away with a phone number if it works well. I couldn’t think of anything more stressful or awkward.

It’s a strange thing he’s suggested – he wouldn’t usually oversee my relationship life. Speed dating’s not even something he’d pursue. Speed fucking, maybe. But not dating. So I wonder why he’s done it, although I can only imagine after my pathetically depressive diatribes last night, he probably just wants me to go out there and live life.

Live. Ha.

Getting out of bed, I grab breakfast, then shower, thinking about what he’s said. He’s righter than he knows it. I’m back in this cycle. I can do anything instead of stay stuck in these routines. I don’t even know why I’m sticking to these routines.

Over shopping, I think about how the week should look: forget work. I’ll text Autumn in the morning and tell her I’m sick or something, and want to take a few days off. Should I still have dinner with Quinn? Or Ethan? I need to check if that’s changed (although in this reckless abandon, I think I should just show up and wing it). I’m still fucking tied to Regina. And the rest?

I should go somewhere. I’m not a holidayer by nature, but I should smash the routines of my life with something new.

The more I think about it, the more excited I get, and that awakens something I haven’t experienced in a while: hope. That helps me identify something that I’ve just stopped seeing: I’ve trapped myself in all my circumstances, particularly with Lana, work, and writing. I can definitely break two of those, and reinvigorate the third.

Once I get home, I spend the rest of Sunday, checking possible holiday destinations – Egypt’s a favourite, because as it does for so many people, it holds so much fascination. I’m not confident doing it alone, though, so something like a tour group might be a better option. I need to speak to a travel agent. Monday. That’ll be my Monday instead of dealing with Melody fucking Merlo.

When I go to sleep that night, it’s with eagerness for the new day.

55.

I wake before my alarm, grab my phone (and feel relief not to see anything from Lana there), then text Autumn that I think I’ve caught a bug, so I’m not coming in today and probably not tomorrow. I’ll deal with Wednesday closer to the day but I think taking two days off is a good place to start.

She texts back almost immediately: Okay. Need anything?

Just rest I think, I tell her.

Okay. Let me know if there’s anything I can bring you.

Thanks.

Then I’m out of bed, and I race through my morning routine, so I can jump in the car. I’ve only driven maybe one car length when I feel something wrong – something squelching on the right side. Getting out of the car, I find the right tyre’s flat – a nail. It’s not the first time that’s happened here, although it is the first time in some years.

After I change the tyre, I get back in the car and contend with morning traffic, although it’s after nine and it shouldn’t be that bad. Most people should be at work, but this is like peak hour. The parking at the plaza’s worse: I have to circle and circle and circle, and end up taking a spot about as far as you can get from the entrance.

Years ago, I read a book by a famous spiritualist who said when things just aren’t going your way – like they haven’t for me this morning – it’s usually a sign that whatever you’re trying to do isn’t meant to be. Conversely, if things are going smoothly, then that means the opposite. It all sounds frivolous because, well, sometimes shit happens but then, funnily, I recall an early time I first started dating Lana where I was crossing the road, and a car turning to beat the signal almost clipped me; then the train I was meant to catch had broken down or something, and we had to wait until it could ferry out and a new train could take its place. I had this thought that day, too, but if there is some spiritual consciousness, would it really be inconveniencing everybody else to send me a message?

Anyway, the travel agency sits right opposite the supermarket where I shop weekly. The doors have been pulled open, and an array of travel agents sit at their computers. One, a forty-something woman with a gorgeous smile, greets me at the entrance, and then walks me back to her desk.

“So, how can we help you today?” she says.

Her nametag, ironically, identifies her as “Hope”, which seems antithetical to everything else that’s gone on this morning, and makes me think that shit can just be random, and we can read too much into it. What I do know is that my anxiety’s escalating – that fear when I range out of my comfort zone, knowing it’s not just a quick, easy drive back home.

“I want to go somewhere,” I say. “Somewhere overseas, but maybe not alone. Maybe, like, with a tour group or something.”

“Have you got anywhere in mind?”

“Egypt.”

“It’s a popular destination,” she says, immediately typing at her computer, but she frowns. “Sorry. Computer’s playing up.” She tries to type again, then bangs on the ESCAPE key, like that can get her out of whatever issue she’s encountered. “Lauren!” she calls over her should to a twenty-something blond sitting a couple of desks away. “Any issues with the system?”

Lauren consults her own computer, types something, then shakes her head. “Nope. All good here.”

“Can I get you to see this gentleman?” Hope says. “My computer’s playing up.”

“Sure.”

“He’s interested in a tour group going to Egypt.”

“I can take care of that,” Lauren says.

But she can’t, because when I sit with her, the same thing happens with her computer. She calls over this gangly twenty-year-old guy who must be the agency’s computer wiz or something – he strides over all confidently, like he’s going to solve this, but then he’s frowning at Lauren’s computer, too, and not doing much more than what Hope did, banging away at the ESCAPE key.

“I’m sorry,” he says, rising. “Anybody else’s computer down?”

Hope claps her hands together. “Mine’s working.”

So I go back to her, only for her system to fail again. My anxiety’s gone now. Annoyance has taken over.

“It’s like you have a power,” she says.

“I certainly do,” I say. “Do you have another branch I could visit?”

“There’s one on Main Street—”

And I’m off, knowing it’s futile, but already suspecting that some part of this cycle has interfered for some reason or another.

There’s a second exit from the plaza that opens onto Main Street, and the travel agent is about a ten minute walk – that’s fine by me, because my morning excitement has transformed into this agitation, and I know what I’ll find when I get there, but I have to confirm it.

I fear that for some inexplicable reason, the travel agent will be closed, but there’s an OPEN sign hanging in the door, but when I try to push the door open, it jams. Somebody on the inside, a matronly woman with horn-rimmed glasses, has to come across and help with it; she tries the lock, then the top and bottom bolts, and finally it judders open.

“That’s never happened before,” she says.

I pause there, wondering if there’s any point in entering.

“Are you coming in?”

I offer a wan smile, and follow her in. She introduces herself as “Gloria”, and then I go through the same spiel I told Hope, saying I’d like to join some tour group that goes to Egypt. Gloria types away at her computer and for a moment, I’m sure this’ll be okay, but then she’s frowning, too.

“Internet seems to be down,” she says. “It drops out all the time. I’m sure it’ll be fine in a minute.”

But it isn’t, and she’s further confounded when she checks her phone and says that’s working fine with the office’s wi-fi – well, it is until she tries to log into their system to research my request.

“Thanks,” I say, rising. “Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow.”

I start across the office, then stop at the door. From the outside, the sign on the door says OPEN. It’s the same sort of sign that lots of businesses hang on their doors. At the end of the day, they flip it to show the opposite side. Only the opposite side’s showing to me now – the CLOSED side.

That makes me think that whatever’s on the other side of the door is closed to me.

The world’s closed to me.