We have, in our posession, a certain mug. This mug is decorated with a smiley face. It was a poor choice to drink from this morning. I’ve cultured a tastefully bohemian hangover,and could use a hug. But the whole house is still sleeping. Just me and the smiley mug. Hooray.

I stare at it angrily. Its face is flat and happy, mine is fleshed out; and feeling kinda bittersweet. 2-D joy faces 3-D melancholy, which didn’t sleep and drank too much wine.

I then realise there’s another smiley on the other side of the mug. Dear god, this is too much. Two faced bastard mug. Fucking yellow.

Some time after the end of the emotional rollercoaster (the details of which I shall not disclose), Toby has lain down, amongst the bamboo, to rest. Why he came down here originally is uncertain. It may have been related to the bladder. But at any rate he sleeps now, free from concern, among the creaking bamboo.

Occasionally he will roll over and shiver. Occasionally he will open his eyes. On these occasions he will see the moon (which is a night off full), and a cassette tape tangled in the branches. It’s for the cassette tape - and its hidden significance - that Toby may have, yes, shed a couple of tears. Not so much for the actual events, but rather for the continuation of the hated status quo.

Somewhere upstairs music is playing. The first song reminds him of the distant past. The second is appropriate to his mood, and the third is so indescribably happy that finally, Toby is roused from his sleep. On paper things may have fallen at the worst possible outcome, but subtler laws than paper govern a person’s happiness. He thanks a certain confidant. He walks home, barefoot.

I’m sitting on the railing, having drunk wine. The open air is yawning at my back; It’s a precarious position. But then, I am a human. I walk on two feet. As such we have excellent balance.

I’m people watching. But as I’m people watching people I already know, and know quite well, the effect is different. It feels more rewarding but more wrong. Watching strangers, you make up stories. Watching friends you just watch. Later, such things will come up in conversation. The conversations were good that night.

I am sitting at an interesting angle that I imagine looks picturesque. I only notice this when I shift into a more comfortable position, then shift back to the one I preferred. I then realise I’m being subtly vain, and leave the railing entirely. Later, I play chess with Caitlin, and the radio plays a song I like.

It was what the doctor prescribed.

Sleepless, disoriented, standing in the moon, smelling Jasmine, not knowing what time it is. Somewhere a forgotten alarm is going off, very faint. I step back inside and try to get back to sleep.

An interval of time passes.

I am still unable to sleep. An animal starts wailing outside. A demon or a jackal or a rabid marsupial. Silently, I reach over and pull the outside door shut. After a while the howling stops, and then I need to pee.

Moving by touch, so as not to wake the others with my lights, I proceed. Then it howls and fur is passing over my ankles. I scream an obscenity. The lights flare. All wake and ask what’s going on. The creature is scampering around, in panic forgetting how to escape. Laundry kitchen hallway laundry. Shrieking seven times past my feet. With it’s evil monkey face in fear.

Pausing hungry at the fishtank, it is finally a siamese cat. But yes, one of those ones with the black ape faces. It demands things of us. We expel it from our home.

Because of the theatrics I sleep in deeply. I wake and there’s sunshine. Brianna is reading in the garden, with tea and avocado. Those things are the only worthy pursuits. The entire day’s work, in one vision, is instantly written off. I’m condemned to spend the day reading in the sun, thinking of my own breathing.

I stumble again to the bathroom, where the mesh curtain is fraying. I tear the trailing fragment off, and it twists in my hands, looking like a strand of DNA. I stare at it for a moment, trying to think, then drop it in the toilet.

In walking from point A to point B, I pass through the great court of the university. It’s there I find, lying in the grass, three candywrappered sweets. A fantale, and eclair and a turkish delight. Shiny wrappers in the sun. Tooth decay manna from heaven. I decide not to eat them, but I can’t shake the vauge sense that I’ve just been rewarded.