Saturday, 23 January 2016

...fragment/excerpt

 ...a stray fragment....chapter 4....




The square was coming into life. People were wandering around, getting shopping, meeting friends, squeezing cars into impossibly tight parking spaces, chatting. Sitting back with my coffee, I marvelled at it all. Nobody was still for more than a few minutes, but it wasn’t hurried and frenetic like it would have been back in England. There was none of the grimness, that tight-lipped determination, that sense of just trying to get through to the end of another day, another week. Time seemed to be different here.

I tried to read the book but nothing was going in. The words were swimming in front of me. I put it down on the table and looked at my watch once again. I’d nearly finished the coffee yet I’d only been there 10 minutes or so. I couldn’t really get another one so I took my time with the last lingering dregs. There was a constant thought rumbling through my mind. Don’t fuck this up. If she turns up then don’t fuck this up. Please God no. Don’t. Fuck. This. Up.

It would have been so easy to. There would be lots of ways I was sure. It was looking pessimistic; or rather I was feeling pessimistic. It was more likely than not that I’d say or do something stupid. It was what I did. But I didn’t really know why I was feeling like that; I should have been relaxed about it all.




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