Life is an inexact science

I sit on the edge of the bed, socks in my hand, and can’t move. It’s not true catatonia, - it’s more like inertia – but it’s real. Sometimes I can stay ‘stuck’ for minutes, just staring into space. I don’t know what gets me going again – but eventually I do. Well I have done so far.

Breakfast is at 8.30am, so they told me when I arrived last night. I glance at the bedside digital clock. It’s not eight yet, so I have plenty of time. I will get going in a minute. I know I will.

I am looking forward to a boiled egg. Georgina didn’t like eggcups; wouldn’t have one in the house. Can you imagine that? A house without an eggcup! I think she had a phobia. I advised her to see a doctor but she told me to mind my own business.
I think not being able to have a boiled egg made it my business.


I feel sort of funny. Not depressed, but sort of… well, funny. In my head, I mean. But I am going for a brisk walk after breakfast. Her train is due in at 11.07, and the railway station is about half a mile from my hotel, so perhaps that will get those… what are they called… endorphins? Get them going.

When I was registering at reception last night, I thought of that song from ‘Evita’: Another suitcase in another hall – except it’s the same suitcase.
I like hotels, though – they are so wonderfully anonymous: you can be with people and yet, at the same time, remain apart. Keep yourself to yourself. No one asks you any questions: Where have you come from? Where are you going? They don’t care, so long as you can pay your bill. And don’t make too much noise or set fire to your room.

I once read of a man who owned a hotel. He had two rules only: no opium smoking in the lift and guests must carry out their own dead. The same man wrote a book: How to lose friends and alienate people.

I believe he committed suicide.

But it’s not how long you live: it’s the breadth and depth of you life that matter.

I have started moving again – at eight seventeen.