Larry Murphy - The Stakeout at First and Last

I pull up to the estate in the early hours, the pre-dawn gloom shrouding my surroundings. It’s a cold winter; cold like Lilian’s heart, but it seemed to be stretching on just as long as my thoughts about her did. I shake myself to attention – I could get lost in those kinds of thoughts, just as far as I could lose myself in her eyes, and there was no ordnance survey map detailed enough to chart a safe path out of those orchid-blue pools. A second shake is necessary.
                “Dammit Larry get a grip on yourself!” I say. I should take my own advice, but always take care sign it out on the log sheet.
                The engine of my car is still running, keeping the heater on my face for a last few seconds before I plunge into the chill of the outside world. I wrap my trench-coat closer around myself as I sit there, keeping myself enclosed as an impenetrable fortress of solitude. If only I’d managed to defend myself so well against Lilian’s charms; her sweet words to a burned-out, broken bum like me. She was made for the grander things in life, the finest champagnes. I’m barely the finest chamois. She was a fine sham, alright. 

                I check my watch; time to go. My mark is supposed to be a couple of streets over but I don’t want to drive straight up and blow my cover; that’s rookie stuff. Rookie stuff costs you leads, costs you cases, and sometimes costs your life. Very occasionally it costs about three fifty for a bus ride back downtown. But I’ve moved on from those days; I’m Larry Murphy, and due to a spelling mistake by my sign-maker, I am the world’s finest privet detective.

                I run the details of the case over in my head: it’s a stakeout, plain and simple. The target is usually in green, above average height, and has a haunting ground on the corner of First and Last. It wouldn’t be the first or last time that Lilian’s memory haunted me. What would she say if she could see me now? ‘Let me in out of this cold, ya big lug’ probably. And then there’d be me, sitting in the same clapped out automobile I’ve had for years, warming up the same oafish hands that could never give her what they wanted to. Next to her, at least my heart would be warm, not like it is now…
                “Get it together, Larry.” I tell myself. “You’re on the job. Focus and get your mark.” I finally switch off the engine and get out of the car. As I slam the door shut I see my gloves sitting on the passenger seat, so I open it up again. What a waste – what inefficiency.
                “You’ve gotta be slicker than this.” I say as I close the door a second time. This time I lock it to keep it shut and secure – like my mind needs to be, against the memories of golden hair swinging like a dancer’s veil, through the smoky air of a dark bar all those years ago.
                The gloves creak as I flex my fingers, like doorway in a horror movie, but with hinges made of bone. Maybe horror movies have that kind of thing these days, I realise. I don’t know any more – I’ve not watched a murder flick since that night in Reno when Lilian bought us popcorn and we sat in the back row laughing. Just the thought of it makes me angrier than the theatre worker who threw us out for pouring cola into the seats when we got bored.
                I start walking along Last towards my vantage point, the one I picked out yesterday with the benefit of daylight and having to come by this way anyway to pick up some toothpaste. I’d forgotten it when I was last at the supermarket and I couldn’t risk tooth decay. ‘Dental hygiene is important,’ I think to myself. ‘When did I last go to the dentist?’ I can’t remember. Lilian would have remembered – she had a way of keeping the whole world in order. There was no rushing; no panicking; a wink and a smile and everything fell into place in front of her. She also kept an impeccable Filofax. The way her silky-skinned fingers flipped through the spiral-bound pages – she could just as easily browse through my heart…
                “No, Larry. No distractions, no Lilian, no dentistry. You’re on a case now.” I order myself, trying to push the dark, fluorinated thoughts away. I pull my collar up around my ears and my hat down farther onto my head, to stop the wind biting and clawing at me. There’s no vet around to de-claw this vicious beast, so I have to weather to storm and push on with the job. The wet pavement reflects the streetlights back up at me, and the shadow I cast drifts silently alongside me; it blocks out the light and leaves a dull imitation in its place, just like I did with Lilian. No-one could ever hope to outshine her, but I somehow managed to dim her down – like sunglasses on a chandelier. I was about as much use as that to her as well…
                I arrive at the first corner of Last, Last and Second, and stop by the kerb. There’s no traffic around, but I press the crossing button and wait patiently anyway. In this line of work, you get used to exercising patience, or you fail. Sometimes you do both – they’re what we call bad days. I tell myself that today won’t be a bad one, that I’ll get this job done and then put my life back on track, but I’ve never been a great liar. A worse lyre, to be sure.
                The seconds pass by and I thrust my hands into my pockets, waiting for the green man to grant me safe passage. He and I have an understanding – I wait for his say so before stepping into the road, and he has his people hold the traffic for me. He’s one of my most reliable and far-reaching contacts, but it’s always a messy business when he’s involved. A loose cannon, that green man – I’ve seen him stopping the traffic for no-one at all, and I’m sharp enough to read between the lines. He’s making an example of the influence he wields, showing the poor shmucks in their cars who holds the real power in this town. I tell myself for the hundredth time ‘Stay on his good side, Larry. Wait for his say so. He’ll sort you out’ but it’s hard to forget his treachery on the way here. Twice he stopped me. Twice. Dirty double-crossers don’t last long in this town, but I guess he has the clout to pull it off.
                Thankfully, green man shows up and lets me cross. I nod to him and make my way across swiftly. He doesn’t ask about Lilian – I guess it’s just that plain from my face that she’s not in the equation any longer. I wonder for a moment if he’ll use it against me one day, but there’s nothing I can do about it now; I still need him, so I go on my way. Lilian always told me I needed to cool down and play things a little easier; exercise more control and keep my temper. This one was for her.
                The next street flanks me with bungalows, like silent crowds on either side of a detective procession. They’re all quiet; they’re all dark; they’re all calm. This was my time to stalk and get my mark without interference. ‘Bungalows don’t usually interfere, though’ I remind myself. That was one of Lilian’s first and greatest lessons to me – her wisdom was always a gift far beyond comprehension for a bum like me. It was like giving a dress suit to a hermit crab – a grand act of charity, but woefully under-utilised.
                Formal attire for nomadic crustaceans aside, the bungalows remind me that it’s important to remember who’s never done you wrong, just as much as who your enemies are. ‘The people inside, though; they can be the major players in a very different story.’ I warn myself.
                I check my collar again, to make sure that I’m hidden from bungalow peepers as well as the cold night air. I’m half way down the street now and approaching my vantage point, ready for my task to begin in earnest. I have it all planned out – arrive at the corner, obscure myself behind the post box, and gain as much intelligence as I can about the mark before moving on. The best laid plans can fail though, just like the plans Lilian and I had for our future together. Now it’s a future apart, and I never made a contingency for that. There’s no pension for love, despite my significant investments of affection. I’d thought she was a sure winner, but our futures market crashed and now I’m out of options.
                I keep walking; keep moving; keep going with the case. Suddenly, ahead of me, I see a tall shape through the dim night on the street corner – Lilian! I start to run, barely believing my eyes. I can see her black boots; I can make out her white fur hat and her pillar-box red jacket, her strong post box like physique… and that’s when I realise it’s not Lilian at all. It’s just a white cat sitting on a post box – again!
                “You’ve gotta stop doing this to yourself, Larry. Get your head in gear or get out of the game.” I say, cursing Royal Mail for making a fool of me. The cat leaps off and runs – even he thinks I should be alone.
                Pushing my torment aside, I position myself behind the post box and begin the stake out. I look across the street and straight away I see my mark – running the length of the corner plot it stands there, square-cut and defiant. I take out the Polaroid I was given with the job and make a comparison – that’s definitely my mark, but something feels off. I can’t put my finger on it right away – it’s just a gut instinct that everything isn’t as it seems. He’s got company too; to the left of him are two others of smaller build. Some kind of crew? Perhaps. Henchmen? Probably not, they’d be flanking him defensively. No, they weren’t on their guard, so I don’t think I’ve been spotted. Like a nocturnal toilet patron, however, I’d need to conduct my business in silence.
                For a few minutes, no-one moves. Me, leaning with my hand partially in the letter-slot. The mark standing on the corner, stock-still. His accomplices loitering like dull statues in the dark of the early morning. Everything is calm, and I wait patiently. Then, after a flash of amber, my signal comes – the green man has done his part and secured me access across the road, but I’m lit up like a Christmas tree on the fourth of July. Quickly, I scurry across the road, trying to remain as quiet as I can. It’s tense, but I get to the other side and nothing has changed – I made it through.
                I sneak closer to the mark and that’s when I notice it, I realise what it is that felt so wrong about this case. Damn it, this was sloppy, I should have twigged sooner! This wasn’t some two-bit job from a tawdry housewife – it was a set-up. The mark isn’t privet at all; I’ve been duped, and now I’m standing in arm’s reach of a bona fide creeping juniper. Oh, Lilian, what have I done? What have I let myself get into without you? I’ve tried to be strong without you, tried to get by and push you out of my mind. Maybe this is just my place in the world, to be a clapped-out, burned-up fool. To be manipulated by the great wheels of progress. I’m sorry, doll. I’m sorry.
                I turn around quietly, trying to make an expeditious retreat to my car, when I see the final betrayal – it’s red man!
                “Who told him I’d be here? Who knew enough to trap me once the ruse was revealed” I ask myself. There’s only one answer – green man, the dirty rat! He sold me out. Unless this was bigger than him and me, bigger than all of us, bigger even than a moose on a hillock. Someone high up was pulling the strings here, and they got to him; got to green man.
                I don’t know enough right now, but I vow to myself that I’ll find out what’s going on here. For Lilian. For some reason.
                Trapped like a fish in a trap designed to catch fish, I have no way to go but towards the mark or along the street in the opposite direction. If I went that way, though, I might be spotted – the streetlights were bright. Even if I made it, my car wasn’t over there, and I could find myself suckered into a many-yard walk around a longer route. It wasn’t worth it – the only person I’d walk around the world for was Lilian, and I’d walk a hell of a lot farther than that, to boot. Besides, I’m this far in now, and the only way I’ll be able to find out who’s calling the shots on this dirty job is to head in further. I have to finish the stakeout to get the first piece of the puzzle.
                I take a deep breath, crouch low, and sneak towards the juniper. It’s taller than me by a clear foot, thick-set, and clearly in good shape. I suspect topiary abuse, and steel myself for unpredictable shapes and pleasing forms. Still moving forwards, I’m practically underneath its foliage and I can see the thorns – thin dark silhouettes in the blackness. They’re like wooden hat pins, yearning and leaning in to make a perforated fedora of me. My own trilby could be in danger, but there’s no turning back now.
                I spot something next to the trunk. It’s a rectangular spire of wood sticking out of the ground – the stake! I reach one hand out, towards the stake, and feel its cold splintery surface as I prepare to finish the job. My grip tightens, and I take a deep breath. I inhale a mouthful of bark fragments and lichen as I go, so I cough, splutter, spit, and then take a shallower but longer breath instead. Lilian always used to leave me short of breath too… but rarely gave me a mouthful of plant detritus. Times really have changed.
                I run my hand up and down the length of the stake, feeling for connections, just like with any other case. Sometimes you luck out and find what you want, others you end up with nothing but splinters. This time, it seems, I’m OK. There’s a single loop of twine, old as I am and stretched just as thin, securing the trunk to the wooden post. I take my pocket knife out of my pocket and lean the second arm in, adjusting my balance to avoid a faceful of thorny regret. If I went over I’d be cut up for sure, but not even slightly as cut up as I am over Lilian.
                I feel for the twine again and cut through it easily with the knife, letting the bindings flop uselessly around the trunk – an ageing scarf for a juniper with no fear of the cold. With both hands I grip the stake, lean back, and begin to push off the ground with my feet. This is it, I’m fully committed to the stakeout, just like I was fully committed to Lilian. I can only hope that the stake is more committed to me than she was. Its commitment to the ground is poor, that much is obvious as it comes sliding out through the dampened earth. I stagger backwards, catching my hat on the thorns and landing on my bottom. My buttocks do an admirable job of dampening the impact, but I feel it all the same. If only I’d had emotional buttocks to stave off the hammer-blow that Lilian dealt me.
                I snatch my hat back up from the ground where the juniper deposited it, and I push it firmly back onto my head. With a wary glance towards its silent associates, I slip back away with a feeling of success – the stakeout is completed, and I’ve taken the first step in a new investigation. This could be the start of a new chapter in my life; as if a new beginning in my work could hold a candle to the world-shattering change of Lilian. I can almost hear her laughter at the idea; a heavenly chord ringing across sun-kissed meadows of gold, all in mockery of the sad plebeian trying to scratch away his existence in the abysmal plane of her absence.
                There’s no time to waste, and I know it all too well. Under normal circumstances I’d head back to the car, take my evidence back to the office, and lay out everything I know - trying to put the pieces together. This time I need to stay on the ball and keep my momentum going, lest a slow puncture bring me steadily down to the ground. Lilian always had a puncture repair kit, but now there’s no-one to mend the hole in my oaf’s heart.
                “Snap out of it, Larry, and get moving.” I tell myself.
                I got the job from a woman named Williams yesterday morning. Eliza was her first name, if I recall. Even if I don’t, she’s still named Eliza. No-one’s name is dependent on my memory, but Lilian’s is irrevocably etched into it – like a prayer carved into a rain-slickened rock. Eliza came to my office as if it was a normal job - all concerned expressions, pleas for help, and spurious details. I thought she was distressed, as everyone who comes to me tends to be, but maybe she was just a damn fine actress.
                Eliza lives nearby, on the corner of Last and Shopping. I have to go back to her to collect my fee anyway, so I decide to pay her a visit now. The walk isn’t long – Shopping is the next street over – so I move slowly and give myself time to prepare. I can’t go in too hard with this one; if she was behind the double-cross then I’d need to gather evidence, otherwise I’d have nothing to go on and she could claim innocence. Besides, Lilian always told me to be gentler with people, to treat them with more compassion and not view them as sources of cold hard cash; as cold and hard as I’ve become without her. Still, it was true that she may have been acting out of desperation, at this stage I can’t tell. Like a determined proctologist, I’d get to the bottom one way or another.
                I arrive at the address she gave me – 163 Shopping Boulevard. It’s an end terrace with a short flight of steps leading to a blue door. Round handle, Yale lock above it, and no peephole. She’d have to open the door to me, even if she wasn’t expecting me to make it out of the juniper trap. Any crack in the door would be far more than Lilian ever opened up to me, but even so, all the juniper in the world wouldn’t have kept me away.
                I put the stake down and knock on the door with my left hand, keeping the right ready to defend myself if necessary. I‘m tense, on guard, ready to react to whatever Eliza Williams wants to throw my way. There’s no answer for five seconds, then ten, then fifteen – that’s the order in which those numbers arrive. I knock again, then notice the doorbell. I give it a short ring, though I would have given Lilian a ring of whatever length she chose, encrusted with diamonds enough to put the sparkling ocean surface to shame. A few more seconds pass and there’s still nothing.
                ‘Eliza is playing hard-to-get; I need to play hard-to-ignore.’ I think to myself, and unleash a torrential rainstorm of knocking on the door, leaning my head into the doorbell to hold it in for a perpetual hell-scream of ringing. My right hand is still free to defend me, but the jaunty angle of my head skews my perceptions, heightening my need react with severity and swiftness if something does go wrong. My calamitous cacophony carries on for around twenty seconds before Eliza shows her face at the door. She lashes a hand out towards my face and I catch her wrist in my free hand – my head remains firmly on the doorbell.
                Eliza shouts something at me, but I can’t make it out because of the ringing. She tries to snatch her wrist out of my grip but I hold strong; I can’t afford to trust her yet, especially after such a violent reaction. The force of her yanking does, however, pull me forwards so that I’m no longer ringing the bell, and silence descends on our pre-dawn confrontation in the cold night air. I notice that Eliza is wearing only her nightclothes – somehow sleeping soundly despite sending me into that nest of thorns. She was either some piece of work, or an unwitting victim like myself – duped and played by some sinister shadow organisation. I should be used to it – Lilian played me like a fiddle, then left me to swell and rot in the meltwater of a long and unforgiving winter.
                “What the hell are you doing?” she shouts at me, presumably angry that I tried so hard to get her attention. Clearly she underestimated my determination, as either a privet detective or a victim for her juniper trappings.
                “Getting your attention.” I tell her. “This is for you.” I hand her the stake from underneath the juniper, evidence of a job well done and a trap poorly sprung.
                “What? Why did you bring it to me now? What’s wrong with you? It’s the middle of the night!” Eliza is clearly agitated by something. Not quite jumpy, but far from the picture of calm she was when giving me the job. A sign of guilt, like the writhing of a con under interrogation? Maybe.
                “I told you yesterday, I’d see you in the morning when the job was done. You’re surprised to see me, it seems.” I cunningly observe, goading her into admitting that I shouldn’t have made it out.
                “Of course I am you numbskull! It’s 4am! Who comes around to drop off a bloody garden stake at 4am?”
                She has me there – even in this part of town it’s unorthodox to exchange gardening supplies before dawn. But this is a game of hedgerow hegemony – my domain.
                “I do. You hired Larry Murphy – best of the best. I play by my rules and I get results. Just ask your friend the juniper. You left out that neat little detail when you hired a privet detective. What’s your game here, who are you working for?” I ask her, laying the accusation of skulduggery down, amidst a self-aggrandising cloud of hyperbole and failure not to play this one hardball.
                “What difference does the type of hedge make? And I’m not working for anyone! I asked you to sort the stake out, not leap into the hedge and wake up the whole street, you maniac. If I hired the best then I won’t be making that mistake again.” She says, and attempts to close the door in my face. A mistake indeed – no-one pulls the juniper over my eyes. This attempt to shut me out was another double-cross, and a sloppy mistake. She hasn’t offered me my fee yet, as if she never had any intention of paying me at all. Her defences are starting to crumble and I’m putting pressure on in all the right places.
                “I think you’re forgetting my payment, miss.” I point out, holding the door open. Eliza looks at me like I’m a bad smell on a satin sheet.
                “You can have your money later on, when any reasonable human would expect to be discussing a job with a gardener. I’ll drop it off at your office or something. Goodbye.” She evades, her tone belying that she wished me anything but ‘good’ in our departure. I ready myself to escalate the engagement, but then I remember Lilian’s words, drifting through my mind like a flock of doves across a summer sunset. ‘Be patient, Larry. Trust people once in a while and your world might not have to be so dark anymore.’ Oh Lilian, you know me better than I know myself, you were better than I am myself, and you were probably better than I know. But I can’t trust Eliza, not with everything that’s happened tonight. Even you can understand that, surely?
                “Miss Williams” I say “I’ve held up my end of our agreement. I’m afraid I have to insist that you prove your word’s worth more than old twine on a wooden stake.” I worry that my wordplay is being too heavily influenced by tonight’s events, but don’t bring her attention to it. I need to keep as much power in my hands as possible.
                “Oh, fine! Stay here.” She orders, frustrated at the defeat of her delayed payment play. She disappears into the house, then re-emerges a few moments later with her handbag. I notice that it’s the same blue bag she was wearing yesterday. Running the details through my mind, I realise that this is of no relevance to anything. Another clue? No. That’d be reading too far into it. Lilian always told me not to drill so far into things – my cases, her words, the cellar floor with the water pipes below it; I got myself too far into her hypnotic influence, and just like my cellar, the icy waters rose up to engulf me.
                Eliza counts out my fee - £20 – and thrusts it roughly towards me without a word.
                “Thank you.” I say, taking it from her like a goat taking food pellets from a child at a petting zoo. Which is to say, with my mouth. Both hands have to remain free for self-defence of this wily backstabber.
                Eliza snatches her hand back then slams the door in my face, and I hear her stamping back up the stairs – probably heading back to bed. Yet again, I find myself standing outside alone in the cold darkness. The sunbeam of Lilian is nowhere to be seen, and all that’s left is for me to go back to my car and get some rest before heading to the office. Still, it’s another successful case. The insidious Eliza Williams failed to despatch me with her juniper gambit, and I even got a fee for the pleasure of escaping the trap.
                “You’d be proud of me Lilian, I did it. I solved the juniper case. How, you ask? Well, I’m Larry Murphy - the best damn privet detective in the world”

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The Lament of the Bath Sleeper

Waking up in the bath was always tough. The enamel left her head feeling bruised, her legs were always crumpled up and pressing into the taps, and inevitably something would fall over and leak onto her. Bubble bath is much less relaxing when it’s seeping steadily into your leggings over a six hour period.
                Cassie was sure that the bath wasn’t actually spinning – if she was the owner of a rotating bath then it would be something she remembered. At least, she hoped it would be – right now she didn’t remember much, so it was all a bit of a gambit. Never-the-less, the spinning motion she felt must have been inside her head, which meant that stopping it would be terribly difficult indeed. Taking one of the few measures she could to assert some equilibrium into the proceedings, she forced her eyes open, despite the protestations of her dry eyeballs.
                As the dim early-morning light entered Cassie’s dilated and furious pupils, some of the imaginary rotation she’d been hosting took its leave of her.  Having it stick around when the information from her eyes pointed out that the room was quite stationary would only cause conflict, and confrontation was the last thing the situation called for. Still, conflict or none, and bath or not, she was once again stable. This was a good starting point for either getting up, or falling back to sleep, and so the world was truly Cassie’s oyster in that moment. Unfortunately, her mouth tasted very much like she’d eaten an oyster who’d been fished out of a brewery, and that fact cast an unpleasant pall over her otherwise tolerable situation.
                Trying not to touch the inside of her mouth with her tongue, which is rather difficult when that’s where one’s tongue lives, Cassie decided that falling back to sleep was the only rational choice to be made. She was still tired, it wasn’t very light, and she could probably put up with the skull-flattening effect of an enamel pillow for a little while longer. She lifted her legs to rest her feet on the rim, one between the taps and one to the side, and slid deeper into the bath. Closing her eyes again, she willed herself not to think about how uncomfortable she was, and drifted back into an undignified slumber.
                She dreamed of standing by a road at the top of a hill. A pigeon was eating seeds around the base of a keep-left sign, bobbing its head around and flapping occasionally. She wondered why someone had left seeds in the road, then noticed that the keep left sign was a vending machine for bird seed, and the pigeon was inserting coins from a leather purse. Cassie was impressed, and wanted to get a closer look – she stepped into the road, which was now tiled like the floor of supermarket, and approached the pigeon. It was using human arms from under its wings to deal with the operation of the seed-dispenser, and Cassie noticed a wedding ring on one of the fingers.
                ‘I suppose it’s for the best to have that question nipped in the bud’ she thought to herself, with the faintest air of disappointment.
                The pigeon finally noticed her approaching and cooed loudly, but continued its transaction with the vending machine. It then cooed loudly again, which Cassie somehow understood as a warning that she was walking blindly across a road. She looked right, and saw an estate car careening towards her.
                Everything slowed down – Cassie saw herself standing in the road, and screamed at her body to move, but she remained still. The vehicle crept ever closer, and Cassie tried harder to shout at herself and rouse her own attention, but there was no effect – she remained motionless and the gap grew smaller. At the last second, with all the effort she could muster, Cassie forced her body to leap to the side with its legs kicking wildly – towards the pigeon and out of the path of the vehicle. She landed hard on the ground, striking her shin against a hitherto unseen colander. Cassie stood up and prepared to make an apology to the pigeon for landing on his kitchen utensils. She also felt that she should thank it for warning her about the traffic, but was stopped in her tracks again when she saw that it was facing her with its beak open, and gallons of water were gushing out. It began to flood the area impossibly quickly, rising up to her knees and soaking her legs. It was cold, much colder than she would have expected, having come out of a well-fed bird, and made a hissing sound not unlike that of a running…
                Cassie awoke again with a start, and cold water was flowing freely from the tap, soaking her leggings. She flinched violently, once again slapping her leg into the tap handle and increasing the flow rate. Frantically, she scrabbled backwards away from the water, frothing her bubble-bath leggings into a fearsome lather as she went. With terrified passion, she gripped the sides of the bath with her hands and pushed herself upwards, whilst her feet slipped ineffectually in the suds. The bubbles became ever-thicker around her legs as she struggled. On the bright-side, however, a powerful scent of lavender was beginning to fill the room, rather than the typically reminiscent aroma of a brewery.
                After a few seconds of intense conflict against gravity and lubrication, Cassie managed to scramble to her feet. She stepped cautiously but urgently from the bathtub, then turned off the tap and sighed with relief. Her head was no longer spinning, which was one positive to be drawn, but it still felt like someone had been attempting to inflate her brain with a bicycle pump. Having wet legs did nothing to remedy the situation.
                Cassie looked down at herself, a thick layer of bubbles extending from her knees downwards. She was unreasonably frothy, she decided. This level of bubbliness in the morning, especially so concentrated around the legs, was simply unacceptable.
                ‘Living the dream’ Cassie thought to herself, sarcastically. ’At least I smell pretty good. I might be able to get away without washing these now.’
                Cassie stood there, next to the bath, allowing herself a small feeling of self-satisfaction, and briefly considering whether or not this counted as having done some laundry. These feelings were soon superseded, however, by the chill of her soaked legs.
                ‘I need to take these off. If I wear them for much longer I’d have to wash them again anyway.’ She thought to herself, focusing on entirely the wrong consequence of standing around in saturated and foamy clothing. Having hiked her skirt up and hooked her thumbs into the waist band of her leggings, she pulled downwards, peeling the saturated fabric away from her legs and leaving an impressive amount of foam on her skin.
                Once she had finished, she caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror. Her long black hair was tangled and unkempt, having tried very hard to take the shape of the bath. Her top was twisted and lopsided, and her skirt was hiked up around her waist. Her legs were bare, wet and foamy, and she was holding what looked like a poorly-washed and highly-depressed cat.
                ‘You are one classy dame, Cassie.’ She said to herself.
                Cassie looked down at the mess of black elasticated cotton and lavender scented foam in her hands, and tossed it casually into the bath. That was a situation which could bear to wait until later. Turning away from the bubbly tub of future problems, she grabbed a towel from the rack and dried herself off.
                ‘OK. I’ve had quite enough time in the bathroom.’ She told herself, and pulled the door open to leave her makeshift sleeping quarters. In doing so, she stepped directly onto the remains of the sandwich she’d made herself before going to bed. Or, more accurately, before going to bath.
                ‘Ugh!’ she exclaimed, understandably. ‘Why is there a sandwich here?’ she begged the empty landing, but it lacked sufficient feelings of charity to respond. Then the memory of the sandwich’s origins came gradually back to Cassie, with a defeated ‘Oooh’.
                Cassie had been hungry when she and Sarah had got back in last night, so she’d made a sandwich for herself. At some stage after the creation of the sandwich, Cassie’s need for the loo had become overwhelming – she was far closer to wetting herself than was reasonable for any healthy human adult. In order to remedy this, she’d headed towards the lavatory, but admitted to herself that the perilous bathroom was no place for such a young and innocent sandwich. With risky scenarios such as the toilet-drop, the sink plunge, and even an outside chance of the shampoo-saucing, the dangers were all too real. Cassie had placed her snack safely on the floor outside the doorway and headed in to conduct her urgent business.
                After mourning her lost snack and the unpleasant sensations being experienced by her toes, as well as a short trip back to the bath to rinse her foot, Cassie stepped carefully over the now squashed sandwich and headed towards the bedroom to get dressed. The food-floor situation could be addressed in the fullness of time.
                The bedroom door was closed, which meant that Sarah was probably still asleep in there; the utmost caution and stealth would be required. Very slowly and carefully, Cassie pushed the handle down and leant into the door, gradually sliding it open over the soft bedroom carpet. The quiet swooshing sound of the door and carpet gave way to a gentle, if rattling, breathing coming from the direction of the bed, and Cassie tip-toed her way into the room. Her own side of the bed was the farthest from the doorway, and therefore both her chest of drawers and her pile of discarded clothing were similarly distant. A silent circumnavigation was necessary.
                Cassie picked her way over the little black dress which Sarah had been wearing last night, and tried to avoid placing her foot on the collection of discarded hair pins. A short spell of hopping and silent cursing punctuated her failure in that regard. Cassie’s mind was screaming at Sarah for not putting them on the bedside table, and she looked at the hair-care perpetrator to complete her judgement, but in doing so the rage quickly melted away again. Sarah was sleeping soundly on her front, breath still rattling away, with her arm dangling off the bed and one foot poking out a fold in the duvet. Looking at the ungainly human spillage, which filled the bed and called itself Cassie’s other half, Cassie’s righteous fury dissipated despite the determined protestations coming from the injured foot. Cassie broke a smile (within the warranty period, so no harm done) and put her foot down again, straight back onto the hair pins.
                A second bout of quiet swearing later, Cassie pushed on past the minefield laid down by her sleepy companion, and reached her chest of drawers. She pulled open the middle drawer and gazed hungrily as it unveiled a small portion of her impressive ‘mong-out’ collection. The mong-out collection was the subset of Cassie’s wardrobe which was particularly suited to doing very little indeed. There were always local variations in the amount of clothing in the mong-out collection – generally, whatever Cassie woke up in after a Friday night out became an honorary member for the day – but the core constituents were laid in front of Cassie in this moment. The pyjamas were a workhorse; cosy, comfortable, and a clear message to anyone who saw her that if she achieved a single thing that day then it would be too much. The dressing gown strewn across the floor nearby was another classic choice, but having to occasionally re-tie the belt was far too much effort for today. Brushing aside old jeans and stretched t-shirts, Cassie settled on her old university hoodie and a pair of sweatpants – it was a full-slob situation.
                Cassie changed quickly, in the well-practised manner of a serial monger, and crept her way back out of the bedroom. She had been tempted to wake Sarah so that she could say ‘good morning’, but elected against it when another memory popped itself back into existence.
                Cassie and Sarah had been standing at the top of the stairs, discussing something inane, when Cassie had claimed she’d ‘wake with the lark and bask in the pre-dawn glow of a hangover-free day.’ Sarah had then declared ‘I love you very much Cassie, but if you bask too loudly and wake me up early, I will cut you.’
                Cassie was at least 80% sure that Sarah had been joking about cutting her, but it didn’t feel like a risk worth taking at this stage. That went double, since promises of a ‘hangover-free day’ were clearly a fabrication. Sarah would probably wake up of her own accord soon enough, and then no-one had to gamble with potential knife-crime. For now, the best plan of action was to head downstairs, make the best she could of the rest of the morning, if it even was morning still, and await the naturally-stirring cutting-free Sarah.
                After collecting the squashed remains of last night’s sandwich from outside the bathroom door, having declared this moment to be ‘the fullness of time’, Cassie went down the staircase. Around half way down, she noticed that the hallway had rather more shoes strewn around it than usual. In fact, according to Cassie’s rough count, approximately all of her and Sarah’s shoes were tastefully sprinkled around the floor. She didn’t recall events 100% clearly, but she was fairly sure she had not in fact been wearing all the shoes she owned last night. Quite aside from the trouble she would have faced in fitting them all onto her feet, she would have clashed horribly with herself; there’s no way Sarah would have let that fly. The sheer volume of shoes involved here implied that this was an endeavour of passion and determination, and there was no good explanation for that. Unfortunately, Cassie knew from experience that the lack of a good explanation for what she was seeing often meant that there was only a bad one; bad explanations are often worse than no explanation at all.
                The shoe situation didn’t need to be dealt with right now, much like the soggy leggings – the priority call had already been made to sate her perishing thirst, of which Cassie had become cognizant whilst sneaking around the bedroom. She waded through the footwear lake, leaving a wake of sling-backs and causing a bough-wave of open-toed sandals, and entered the kitchen.
                Clearly, things had not run smoothly last night when she had been attempting to relieve her crippling hunger. In many ways, this should have been anticipated not only from Cassie’s choice of shoe distribution and sleeping quarters, but also the fact that the sandwich had been casually abandoned outside of the bathroom door. The kitchen was in disarray; cupboard doors were open, dirty glasses covered the work surface, and packets of crisps and biscuits were dangling out of cupboards precariously or scattered around the room. Interspersed among the many used cups and plates from the night before were straws, cutlery, and items from Cassie’s handbag. Half a cucumber had been crammed into the spigot of the kettle, the majority of a lettuce was sprinkled across the floor, and the butter was bobbing merrily along in the sink – a yellow plastic vessel, holding the souls of hydrogenated sink-farers in melted memorial. Cassie wasn’t sure what she felt the most: remorse that she’d have to go out to get more butter, or proud that drunk-Cassie had been responsible enough to try to do the washing up. It was a bit of a moot point though, because either way this evidence HAD to be destroyed before Sarah became aware of it. It wasn’t so much a telling-off that Cassie feared, as the relentless piss-taking which would surely follow.
                Cassie grabbed the cucumber, and found that it had been thoroughly buttered, presumably in some kind of inebriated zeal. Begrudgingly, Cassie had to admit that there was a distorted logic to the situation – a well-greased cucumber had a much greater chance of making it into the kettle. The motivation for trying to achieve that end goal was doomed to remain a mystery, however. Grimacing, but accepting that what’s done is done, Cassie decided that she should simply wipe the cucumber clean and forget that this whole sorry mess ever happened. In reaching for the kitchen roll, she discovered that the fates had other plans for her – it was gone, leaving her clutching a buttery sandwich-filler and many, many regrets. She couldn’t just put the cucumber back on the side, because that would get butter everywhere and probably soil the dairy-coated article further. She especially wasn’t going to use the sink because that would involve one or both of the cucumber and her hand entering the cold, untrustworthy water.  She had to find the kitchen roll.
                It hadn’t been in the bathroom, so that was one potential hiding place out. The landing had also been clear, as far as Cassie remembered, but the bedroom had been dark, and therefore little data had been gathered. On balance, though, Cassie didn’t think it was terribly likely that Sarah would have taken the kitchen roll to bed with her. There was a possibility that the kitchen roll had been scuttled and sunk beneath the surface of the shoe-lake, but there was no way Cassie was going to risk getting her shoes buttery. The most logical place to begin her search was the living room, so off she waded, back through the shoes, to find her absorbent prize.
                The living room curtains were drawn shut. Cassie used her free hand to pull them open and allow the sunshine to spill into the room from the back garden. This also allowed the cereal box which had, for reasons lost in time, been sitting atop the curtain pole to drop down onto her head.
                “AAAH!” Cassie shouted understandably, having not expected breakfast to perform an aerial strike on her. The cornflakes crunched to the ground, spilling slightly onto the laminate, and Cassie eyed them askance.
                “Why?” she muttered to herself in distress, before cracking a smile and giggling to herself.
                The morning light unveiled the living room, which seemed to have escaped relatively unscathed from the night’s shenanigans. The sofas were still intact, the TV was thankfully unbroken, and there was relatively little mess of which to speak. The cushions had be rearranged onto the floor, but that wasn’t the end of the world. Scanning around the room, a flash of white caught Cassie’s eye, and she saw the kitchen roll nestled underneath the coffee table. It seemed rather happy there; not mopping up spilt drinks or sauces, but having a little rest on the floor. Cassie wasn’t going to judge it for that – she’d been in a far worse position only a few minutes ago.
                Taking care not to butter the coffee table or the floor with her cucumber, Cassie knelt down and reached underneath the coffee table to retrieve the kitchen roll. She took hold of one edge and yanked it out, unspooling several feet of it as she did so. Standing up again, the loose sheets were trailing along the ground, even when she lifted the roll above her head. This was no good to her at all – all achieved was losing the use of her free hand, and she still lack the ability to wipe the cucumber clean. Cassie looked from one hand to the other, assessing her possible routes forward, and with a frustrated groan she admitted defeat – she would seek the aid of a slightly more responsible adult and wake up Sarah.
                Deflated, Cassie plodded her way back up the stairs and into the bedroom, kitchen roll drifting along behind her like the train of an absorbent wedding dress. Sarah was still sprawled out across the bed, washed ashore by the gallons of wine she’d surfed home on last night. Lifeguard Cassie had chosen the buttered cucumber and loose kitchen roll as resuscitation aids – the potential definitely existed that she was unqualified.
                “Sarah?” Cassie called softly. “Sarah, are you awake?”
                Sarah continued breathing heavily, which was her usual way of saying no.
                “Sarah, I think I need your help. Sarah. Sarah.” Still nothing. Actions speak louder than words, however, so Cassie was practically screaming when she balanced precariously on one leg and poked Sarah with her foot.
                “Ungg.” Sarah complained.
                “Sarah?” Cassie asked again, feeling pretty sure that she was addressing the correct person, but enquiring anyway.
                “Hnng, yeah?” Sarah replied sleepily.
                “I think I need some help.” Cassie told her sheepishly. Sarah open her eyes and looked towards Cassie.
                “What the Christ are… is that a cucumber?”
                “Er, yeah. I’ve got some kitchen roll too.”
                Sarah spluttered out a laugh. “Of course you have. They’re very nice; I’m glad you’ve brought them up here to meet me. Why do you need my help?”
                “Well, the cucumber is covered in butter and-“
                Sarah began cackling.
                “-and I can’t put it down to break off the kitchen roll to wipe it clean.” Cassie finished, sincerely.
                Sarah looked up and saw the trail of kitchen roll leading towards the door, then fell back onto the bed laughing even harder. Cassie relaxed slightly, feeling that the risk of a cutting was now negligible.
                After a minute or so of alternately trying to compose herself, looking back at Cassie, and then folding up in laughter, Sarah sat up again. She examined Cassie more closely, from the buttery cucumber to the streamer of kitchen roll, and what appeared to be cornflakes in her bedraggled hair. ‘Poor little Chicky.’ She thought.
                “OK… OK… come here, let me help you with that. Give me the kitchen roll and keep the butter away from the duvet. How do you get yourself into these situations?” she pleaded with a grin, as she began gathering up the unfurled paper towels.
                “I went downstairs and made the mistake of trying to tidy up. Then the cornflakes fell on my head.”
                “How did the cornfl-“
                “They fell off the curtain rail in the living room.”
                Sarah collapsed in laughter again. “I remember that! I remember getting in and you telling me how much you needed snacks. So we went into the kitchen and searched for something to eat in the cupboards, but you said you were also… what was it… “far too weary for these shenanigans”, so you had to go sit down in the living room to come to terms with how tired and hungry you were.”
                Cassie smiled as the memory limped its way back into her mind. “I remember going to sit down, now that you mention it.”
                “Yeah, you went in there and I thought that you’d maybe like some cornflakes – mostly because they were the first thing I saw and I just wanted to go to bed, truth be told – so I went to the door and threw them at you.”
                “And you missed so badly that they landed on the curtains?” Cassie sniggered.
                “Not quite, my love.” Sarah replied with a smirk. “Rather than catching the thing you’d asked me to give you, you decided to defend yourself and deflect it like a volleyball. You caught it so badly that it landed on the curtains.” She finished triumphantly.
                Cassie started to put her head in her hands and promptly wiped butter on her cheek.
                “Uggghh” she squealed. “Please Sarah.”
                Unable to ignore the desperate pleas of her greased fiancée any longer, Sarah swung herself out of bed and tore off a sheet of kitchen roll for cucumber reconditioning. She then got back into the bed to watch and mock as appropriate.
                “Thanks Sarah.” Cassie said quietly, with a note of amusement and a symphony of embarrassment.
                “Any time you need me to bail you out of a spread and vegetable situation, I’ll be there. I think it’s time you told me how you got yourself into this mess though.”
                Wiping the cucumber over, Cassie replied “Well, I tried it to pick it up, and it was buttery. Then I tried to pick up the kitchen roll and it was a bit, erm, tumbly.”
                “And how did the cucumber come to be buttery?”
                Cassie toyed with speculating about lubrication for kettle ingress, then decided that no good would come of admitting to that. “I don’t really remember.”
                A disbelieving look from Sarah implied that her explanation was insufficient.
                “I don’t!” Cassie protested.
                “Well I didn’t do it, so you must have.”
                “Well, yeah. I’m pretty it sure it will have been me. I guess it was when I was making my sandwich, perhaps I was over-enthusiastic with the spreading.”
                “Or pre-buttered the cucumber to save time on a subsequent sandwich?” Sarah offered.
                “Yeah, maybe.” The cucumber was now clean, and Cassie was admiring her handiwork.
                “Was the sandwich nice?”
                “I can’t comment on its flavour, but it felt pretty horrible when I stepped on it this morning.”
                Sarah laughed again. “I love you Cassie. Never change.” She said when she’d regained some composure.
                “I had a foody foot OK! It happens; leave me alone about it!” Cassie replied, attempting to be grumpy but failing not to grin. “I love you too.” She added after a pause. “Anyway, I need to finish clearing up downstairs; why don’t you just stay in bed?”
                Sarah eyed Cassie suspiciously. “What don’t you want me to see? How bad is it down there?”
                “I came up here with a buttery cucumber, how bad do you think it is?” Cassie answered, brandishing her cleaned vegetable at Sarah.
                A heavy sigh was the only answer Cassie received. Sarah closed her eyes, nodded her head and laid back down. Cassie picked up the kitchen roll from the bed, kissed Sarah on the cheek, and returned downstairs.
                Back in the kitchen, Cassie returned the cucumber to the fridge and surveyed the situation facing her. It would have been a tedious enough task anyway, but with an unknown layer of additional sandwich mess to account for, clearing up could stretch into the hours.
                ‘Can I really be bothered with this on my own?’ Cassie thought to herself. ‘Sarah won’t mind helping me that much. Although she must be tired and want to sleep. She won’t want to get up to face... this. And the years of ridicule may not be worth it.’
                Conflicted, and staring deeply into the SS butter, which was resting calmly on the sink-water’s surface, Cassie’s ears pricked to the sound of footsteps from above – Sarah was getting up anyway. There was no way to hide the filth in time – she would have to accept her fate and face Sarah’s reaction. Cassie felt a small pang of guilt that Sarah would end up helping her clean the mess whatever happened, even though she deserved a day off, but it was still caught in a deadly combat with her desire for an easier task.
                Scrabbling in futility, Cassie grabbed a handful of lettuce leaves from the floor and stuffed them into a pint glass – that was a much better place for them. As she then attempted to hide the glass behind some empty wine bottles, however, she heard a shout from the staircase.
                “MY SHOES!” Sarah cried, thundering down the stairs. “Why are my shoes all over the floor? Cassie?”
                Cassie left the glass where it was and rushed to the kitchen doorway.
                “I don’t know. I don’t remember doing it – I thought it might have been you.” She postulated. The look on Sarah’s face, somewhere between horrified, confused, and sceptical, informed Cassie that the redistribution of footwear on such a scale was not something with which she would have involved herself.
                “I don’t remember doing it either, and I don’t recall wading through my nice heels to get to bed.”
                Cassie shrugged. “I don’t see why I’d have done it. It would have taken ages and all I was concerned about was snacks. Unless I tried to eat the shoes instead – are there bite marks on any of them?”
                Sarah looked stonily at Cassie. “If there are bite marks on my shoes, I think we can agree that you won’t want me to see them.”
                “You really think I’d bite your shoes?” Cassie shot back, a little hurt at the accusation of being a cobbler-gobbler.
                “No smoke without fire.” Sarah defended. She then paused thoughtfully, for longer than Cassie felt was necessary. “Although it doesn’t sound like something you’d do, no.”
                “Good.”
                “I need some water in any case – can I get through to the kitchen please?”
                Cassie tensed. The kitchen filth had been given much higher priority in terms of being hidden from Sarah than the shoes, and so she feared a proportionately worse response.
                “I can get that for you.” Cassie spluttered too quickly. “Don’t you want to go back to bed?”
                Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “What are you hiding in there?”
                “Nothing! Nothing. I just thought that you might want to lie down after the shoe shock.”
                Sarah considered this answer for a couple of seconds. “Bullcrap.” Came her insightful assessment. “Let me see what’s going on.”
                Like a surefooted mountain goat, Sarah navigated the loose rocks of footwear and stepped into the kitchen. She then curled up on the floor, in a nest of lettuce, laughing at the mayhem to which she had borne witness.
                “Wha… what is wrong with you?” Sarah managed to splutter breathlessly, between bouts of cackling.
                “I clearly struggled, alright? We both know it.” Cassie gracefully conceded. Sarah gradually regained control, stood back up, and put her hand on Cassie’s shoulder.
                “It’s OK baby – sandwich-making out-foxes even the best of us.” Sarah told her mockingly.
                “Oh, shut your face.”
                “No, I mean it. It makes perfect sense to throw the lettuce everywhere in the room. Some of it is bound to land on the bread sooner or later.”
                Cassie crossed her arms grumpily. “See, this is exactly why I wanted to hide it from you.”
                “Aww, cheer up Chicky.” Sarah told her with a wry smile. “I’m only playing.” Cassie eyed her suspiciously – when Sarah was feeling playful it generally meant that there was no end in sight to the constructive jibes.  At least the guilt of letting Sarah get up to help had faded to nothing.
                “Besides” Sarah continued “who could possibly be sad when you’ve got a whole pint of lettuce to enjoy?” She thrust the glass of leaves merrily into the air and then bent over in a fit of giggles again.
                “Well I’m glad you’re having fun.” Cassie said sarcastically, failing to avoid smirking as she did so.
                “There’s nothing I like waking up to more than a ruined kitchen and wet butter.”
                “Don’t forget a buttery kettle.” Cassie reminded her.
                “Eh?” Sarah replied with intrigue. Cassie pointed at the kettle and Sarah sighed. “How did this happen?”
                “Where do you think the cucumber came from?”
                Sarah slapped her hands to her face. “There aren’t words, Cassie. There just aren’t words.”
                “Not even, ‘Wow, I’m impressed?’” Cassie asked optimistically.
                “Not quite, my love. Not quite. Breakfast?”
                “I could murder a fry up. But I think that would involve clearing all this up first…” Cassie’s expression betrayed no desire to engage in such an activity. With her antics already rumbled, there was no longer any motivation to hide the evidence of her nocturnal misdeeds.
                “Hmm. Yes it would. I think this situation can bear to wait until we’re feeling more responsible. Café? My treat – you’ve given me so much already this morning, I feel the need to repay you. Besides, you’ve already got our shoes out for us so we’re basically ready to go.”
                “You’re not going to stop this any time soon, are you?”
                “Almost certainly not.” Sarah informed Cassie with a grin.
                “Then I’d rather be ridiculed over breakfast than the washing up. I guess. Let’s go.” Cassie said decisively, grabbing Sarah’s hand. Unfortunately for Sarah, Cassie hadn’t washed it since holding the cucumber.
                “Ugh! Cassie!” was how Sarah chose to articulate her distaste.
                “What’s done is done!” she responded, and so they left; hand-in-buttery-hand.

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Winston's Quest

It was his very own cotton dream. Well, his partially cotton and partially polyester dream. Perhaps dream is too strong of a term for a mixed-fabric metaphor; his very own partially cotton and partially polyester imagined situation. That doesn't quite capture the warmth and security, but at least it’s not being oversold.
                Sadly, every imagined situation, regardless of fabric composition, has to come to an end eventually. Reality always asserts itself, renowned as it is for being a particularly dominant character; it lacks proper development, and no-one really thinks it’s that charismatic, but it is dominant none-the-less - that’s what being the top of the billboard gets you. Winston’s particular cotton and polyester situation fell victim to reality’s attention-seeking when his mobile phone elected to cause a right-old ruckus, rather than laying quietly on his bedside table. It would be the last time he trusted it.
                Tantrums are best dealt with by ignoring them, he’d always been taught by his broodier friends. Being the open-minded type, Winston decided it was time to put that to the test, rolling over triumphantly and pushing his head farther into the more feathery regions of his immediate vicinity. That was something he felt secure in doing, because in all his years, the feathery region had been a chicken in only one instance. Compared to the number of times it had been a bona-fide pillow, those odds were pretty good.
                Whether it was his lack of faith in ignorance, or perhaps his ignorance of how telephones work, the tantrum continued unabated. In fact, it was worse now, because he would necessarily have to go to all the effort of rolling back over to try another silencing technique. It never rains but it pours.
                Winston didn't understand why this was happening. ‘Why must my not-quite-dreams be interrupted and ruined by the will of that silicon-menace and its sonorous shenanigans?’ He thought, tortured by the acoustic onslaught.
                David had his Goliath; Holmes had his Moriarty; Winston had his morning alarm. If those greats before him had vanquished their foes, then surely he could do the same. He didn't believe himself to be inferior to a man with a sling, nor to a man with exceptional deductive reasoning skills and an encyclopaedic knowledge of many academic fields. Cementing his rivalry with the phone as one of the greatest conflicts in human history, Winston made the mighty trip back onto his other side and swung an arm towards the source of the electronic racket. Sound-waves collided with his ears, palms collided with glass screens, and the phone then collided with the floor. Despite this drubbing, however, it maintained its glorious crusade against human hearing by trying to deafen Winston whilst partially underneath the bed.
                A few times in his life, Winston had wondered if he was in fact the bad guy, and this was one such example. The hero always triumphs over his oppressor, the heroine shakes off adversity on her path to victory, and Winston always fell short of even the most pedestrian of achievements. One or two outcomes of that nature could be disregarded as bad luck, but only a true antagonist could meet with such tragic defeats after a hard-fought and well planned battle, time and time again. Was he the oppressor of his phone? Was the communicative menace in fact the martyr of its people, leading a campaign of resistance against the sleeping villain? Probably not – it was only a phone, and Winston owned it so he was entitled to treat it as he saw fit. But the thought still niggled at him, mostly when he was in a partially conscious stupor.
                With the phone on the floor, and both ignorance and violence failing, there was nothing else for it - Winston would have to do the unthinkable and get up. Technically, not much ‘up’ actually went on – he instead slid gradually out from underneath the duvet, legs first, and flopped gracelessly onto his bottom - but he felt that this was a fine compromise, considering how little he wished to cease being in bed.
                Benefitting from the increased dexterity afforded by his new positioning, Winston deftly grabbed the phone and swiped the alarm to turn it off. The silence washed over him like a tropical stream, only with fewer fish. This was a stroke of luck, since if there had been any fish in his bedroom, he would not have been even slightly capable of answering the questions that situation would have raised.
                ‘Be about your business. Leave me be.’ He would tell the invading fish. ‘This isn't a place for fish to be washing over people.’ He would continue. But since fish can’t talk, nor are they terribly good at moving around outside of water, nothing of merit would happen as a result.
                Sitting on the floor and thinking about what he might discuss with a fish, were he to find one on the carpet or airborne and coming in his direction, wasn't getting Winston anywhere. It never did. Taking affirmative action, he pulled himself to his feet and scratched his head – just like a true-born leader. With the blurry eyes of a general, the sleep-stiff muscles of an admiral, and the sleepy mind of a commander-in-chief, Winston led the charge away from the safety of the bed. He chaperoned his feet safely past the keys he’d dropped on the floor; he strategized a safe passage for his elbows past the cupboard door he’d left open; he shook himself into formation and ploughed his torso boldly through the doorway, to take the bathroom once-and-for-just-a-moment. He didn't need the bathroom for all - not just yet anyway.
                Having quieted the shrieking war-cries of his bladder, Winston stood in front of the sink to wash his hands and stare at himself in the mirror. Mirror-Winston was not looking his best; there were bags under his eyes, there was stubble scattered in an irritatingly patchy way across his cheeks, and his hair apparently wished to have nothing to do with his scalp, craning itself away in any direction it could. Both Winston and mirror-Winston raised a hand to their faces, then flinched away when they felt their cheeks become wet.
                ‘Washing my hands makes them wet.’ Winston reminded himself. From the look on mirror-Winston’s face, he was making rather similar observations.
                A short foray to the towel remedied the soggy-hand situation, but only for the short period until he tried to wet his toothbrush; the taps were all too happy to accommodate Winston’s return patronage and gave him extra water pressure, well above the amount he’d asked for, completely for free. Winston assessed this amount of pressure to be ‘too much’ as he felt the generous spray across his hands, arms, and stomach. The towels once again performed admirably, and soon enough he was foaming at the mouth in a cavalcade of menthol freshness and bristled scrubbing.
                Once his bathroom ordeals were completed, Winston returned to the bedroom to get dressed. He’d tried having pants-days many times before, but this time it just didn’t feel appropriate. The middle of winter tended to be like that. On top of that, he knew that Leah had asked him to do something this morning. He couldn't remember what it was, but he knew that the chances of it involving him walking around in his pants were relatively low.
                His jeans were exactly where they should have been – tangled among yesterday’s shirt and jumper on the floor – but he would have to seek out a new shirt to wear. For some reason, he held to the long-accepted truth that fabric which was next to the torso should be worn only once, but that worn nearby to the bottom was good for at least a week.
                He quickly pulled his jeans on, hopping elegantly around the room as he did so, and expertly shut the wardrobe door with his back when he over-balanced and fell into it. ‘Shut the doors.’ Leah would often tell him, but now he had evidence that it would be wasted effort, when he could achieve the same result whilst getting dressed. He made a mental note to tell Leah about this later.
                Fully trouser-enabled, Winston proceeded to re-open the recently closed wardrobe door and removed a green flannel shirt, putting it on straight away and leaving the door hanging open, ready to be dealt with by tomorrow’s dressing. Today’s dressing was going tremendously – all that remained was to put on some socks and extract his jumper from the ground-tangle. He felt sure that Leah should be proud of him for his morning’s clothing excellence once he was finished, and took a moment to appreciate his own good work.
                Several deep and smug breaths later, he pulled open the top drawer of the wardrobe and bent down to grab a pair of black socks, hitting his forehead on the open wardrobe door as he did so. Cursing his own hubris in leaving it open and expecting everything to be fine until the next morning, Winston tumbled backwards into a seated position on the bed, pulling one sock on and still failing to close the wardrobe door. As the sock passed the ever-critical heel-apex, a soft ripping sound alerted him to the true plight of the moment – the top of the sock had indeed made it all the way to his ankle, but his heel remained exposed to the elements, peeping through a new hole in the fabric, like a street vendor peddling cold-feet from an upholstered van.
                Several seconds passed in deadly silence. Winston didn't move, and the sock didn't react. Gradually, softly, and with the greatest remorse, Winston loosened his grip on the sock and let it snap back to his ankle. He sat pondering what his next move should be, filled with anxiety about pulling the surviving sock onto his other foot. If it happened again then questions might be asked – one sock-ripping was an accident and it could be allowed to slide, but two? That was dangerous territory. But he wouldn't let it come to that; Winston wouldn't let this happen again. With meticulous care, he gathered up the second sock and rolled the sides up until it resembled a tiny beanie hat, and with it he crowned his chilly toes. He then proceeded to unfurl the precious woollen cargo along the length of his foot until he reached the heel, where he paused. He was frozen in fear, lest he claim another innocent sock in his lust for warm feet.
                ‘No, Winston.’ He told himself. ‘Don’t become a slave to this feeling. It was an accident and you’re better than this. You have to move on. Pull up your socks and get to it.’ From this moment he spent a good ten seconds giggling at his own unintentional pun, robbing the situation of much of its gravitas and tension. With a smooth and calculated pull, the sock unrolled over the heel and rose to its full height up his calf.
                Breathing a sigh of relief, Winston then turned his attention back to the exposed heel. He was now in a tricky position of either having to wear one-and-a-half pairs of socks, which would lead to a tremendous debacle when it came to dong laundry, or persisting with the chilly heel and putting the problem off until later. In an effort to help himself make a decision, he stood up and tried walking around the room a little, soon finding that this demi-sock simply wouldn't do. Man’s foot was not made to feel carpet on the heel and sock on the toes. It was not made to feel the boundary of a hole. A sock torn is no sock at all, he was forced to conclude. Taking action quickly lest nerves stall him once more, he gripped the end of the sock in one hand pulled it hard. An almighty ripping filled the room, signifying the final end of a sock’s service.
                Winston responsibly dropped the sock-end onto the floor and grabbed another pair from the drawer, this time leaning his head out of the way of the door. Closing it now would just be letting Leah win. Un-balling the pair and throwing one sock back into the drawer, which was now also left open, Winston carefully re-dressed his foot, realising half-way that he’d left the severed top of the old sock hanging around his ankle. Seeing it as a fitting memorial to be wearing a black-leg band (even though it was made from the remains of the murdered party), he allowed it to remain.
                Pleased to be finally leaving the sock nightmare behind him, Winston picked up his jumper from the floor. He reached in through the bottom and tugged out yesterday’s t-shirt, throwing it into the dirty-washing pile. This pile was a rather nomadic beast, finding itself wherever Winston happened to get dressed or undressed on any particular day. There are rumours that many such piles existed throughout the house, but the dirty-washing pile thought that to be nothing more than superstitious nonsense.
                The rather uneventful pulling-on of the jumper implied to Winston that things might just be OK after all, and he left the room with an optimistic vigour. He immediately returned with an altogether impatient energy, to pick up his forgotten phone from the floor and apparently also to tread on his keys. Uttering a few words to imply that this wasn't a favourable happenstance, he sat back on the bed and rubbed at the sole of this foot. There seemed to be no great harm done, although he did get a little distracted by wondering why exactly he’d ended up dropping his keys in the middle of the bedroom floor. Unable to work out a satisfactory answer, but thankful that he had not generated a further sock-weakness by stepping on the sharpened steel, he picked the keys up and stuffed them into his pocket.

                Having finally made it downstairs, Winston decided that breakfast should be his highest priority. No great works can be completed on an empty stomach, after all. He peered at the side of the kettle and saw that it was a quarter full; this was excellent news since it meant he wouldn't have to tangle with another tap just yet. He flicked the switch and grabbed a mug from the draining board, spilling clean cutlery into the sink as he did so. He peered impassively at the fallen forks and spoons for a few moments, then shrugged and put the mug down next to the kettle. A blue light was shining away on it, and it was beginning to make a pleasant bubbling sound.
                Winston grabbed a teabag from the jar on worktop and dropped it into his mug. Now he only had to wait for the kettle to boil, and he felt mild relief that his immediate tea-making duties were over. Instead of watching the kettle, and possibly causing it not to boil in doing so if the sayings were to be believed, he took a bowl from the draining board and began preparations for cereal merriment. A fanfare of further cutlery tumbling into the sink added a fitting grandeur to proceedings.
                The cereal selection process was an intricate one, which Winston was well versed in carrying out. He wasn't in a huge rush, so temporal concerns were not going to pose an issue, however he did feel slightly groggy from his abrupt wake-up, so a heavy-going porridge breakfast was out of the question. Something light then, but not too sugary – goodbye to the frosted-choco-lumps.
                ‘What does that leave then?’ he asked himself for narrative purposes; he could clearly see the remaining cereal boxes in the cupboard, and there was no-one else around to ask.
                It was a two-way stand-off – the thatched-malt squares versus the corn shavings. Either one would fit the bill and serve his breakfast needs admirably. Winston didn't want to play favourites here, since each of them had served him admirably in the past; he had to find a fair way to choose. Rock, paper, scissors wouldn't work – cereal doesn't have hands. He didn't have a coin or a die to hand, so that was out too. He pondered on the situation, staring at the boxes and feeling his thighs begin to ache with the effort of crouching. The kettle was nearing boiling point, vibrating aggressively on the stand whilst bubbling sounds filled the room. Winston covered his eyes with one hand and reached out blindly with the other, grabbing hard when he felt it hit cardboard – he had picked the corn shavings, and crushed a significant portion of the box whilst doing so. He’d have to explain this to Leah later, but that was future-Winston’s problem. Present-Winston sincerely hoped he would remember what it was that Leah had asked him to do today. Otherwise, future-Winston would be in for even more trouble when she got back and found that not only had he crushed the cereal, but his tasks were left undone to do so.
                Putting thoughts of his future disciplinary hearings aside for now, and satisfied that he had been sufficiently unbiased in his mode of breakfast selection, Winston returned to his bowl and poured out a healthy serving. He then took one of the few spoons which hadn’t made a pilgrimage back into the sink and placed it neatly alongside the bowl. Upon opening the fridge to retrieve the milk, however, tragedy struck once more. No matter where he looked, and no matter how many times he asked the yoghurt, no milk could be found. In a wave of realisation, he remembered Leah assigning him his grim task as if it was yesterday (which it was): ‘There’ll only be enough milk for me to have breakfast before work in the morning, hon. Could you go out and grab some when you get up?’
                Recovering from the flashback, he peered around the fridge one last futile time, and closed the door. Upon it, he saw the post-it that Leah had left to remind him.
                ‘Aha. Yes.’ Winston said to himself. ‘I wish she’d left that note somewhere I’d see it before pouring my cereal out though.’ He muttered, before turning to the cereal cupboard and seeing another post-it there.
                ‘Huh’ he post-scripted.
                Winston returned to his bowl and stared into it mournfully – the arid corn shavings were waiting there expectantly, for the white-rains which would never come. Was it their fate to remain dry forever? Would they never feel the cool embrace of dairy lipids flowing over them? Would not a single one of them become soggy in that hallowed pool of lactation? Winston couldn't give them an answer, which was surprising because the correct answers here were quite obviously ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘no’.
                The situation was clearly not a good one. This cereal could not be allowed to go to waste, but there was nothing with which to wet it, aside from water. Winston didn't much like the idea of watered corn - it sounded more like an agricultural practice than breakfast. The only recourse he could see was to choke it down, dry and powdery. It was at least a small comfort to him that he had discounted the porridge out of hand. Dry corn shavings was one thing, but since he wasn't a horse, dry oats would never have worked.
                It took a few minutes, and many mouthfuls of his piping hot tea, but Winston defeated the dry breakfast. He sat triumphant at the kitchen table, wondering if this was how it felt to be a champion, but soon decided that most champions wouldn't have a dry and burned mouth. Still, at least he had fed himself, and he was resolved not to let Leah down – it was time to go and get the milk.

                Winston made a return to the day’s previous battlefield to fish around for his wallet, then went back downstairs to get ready to go out. His coat was hanging up at the bottom of the stairs, just where he’d left it after Leah had asked him to pick it up from the floor, and his shoes were neatly on the shoe rack, having been through a similar series of events. He put them all on, zipped his coat up to this chin to keep out the cold air, and opened the front door.
                A wintery gale assailed him as he stepped outside onto the damp paving slabs. The sky was grey – not what Winston would have called an inviting grey, but still better than it could have been. The shop was only a short distance away, perhaps a 10-minute walk through the residential estate and onto the high street, so the rain would hopefully not interject during that time. Knowing that this was England however, he braced himself for the inevitability that he would be returning soaked.
                Winston checked that his keys were in his pocket, just in case he’d thrown them across the kitchen subconsciously, and pulled the door shut. The slamming shook the door frame and brought a cold cascade of droplets onto his face, possibly because the door thought he needed a bit of a wake-up call. Fully refreshed by the icy water on his face, he wiped himself with back of his sleeve and set-off up the road. The wind was in his face and caused the loose sides of his coat to flap in the wind, like the sails of a peculiarly landlocked pirate vessel. Similarly, he was somewhat afraid of his mutinous first mate, procrastination – it had been known to overthrow the good captain responsibility for much more trivial prizes than the avoidance of a 20-minute walk. The able seaman fear-of-Leah’s-wrath did an admirable job of keeping the first mate in line, but it was often a close-run battle.
                Winston often found himself puzzling over the lack of rotting leaves in the street as he walked along it. It wasn't that he wanted to see decaying vegetation on a daily basis, but he knew full well that the trees along the verge had been thick with leaves during the summer, then they’d fallen off and coated the pavement, but now they were just gone. He’d never seen anyone cleaning up the detritus, nor had he borne witness to a migration of herbivores. The leaves were just gone, without stooping to rotting. Perhaps it was just their social airs and graces – they couldn't possibly be seen to do something so vulgar. If it was so, then Winston decided to be more grateful towards social pretension in future.
                Striding along the path in an effort to minimise the time spent in the cold, Winston jammed his hands roughly into his pockets. Upon doing so he discovered something vaguely oblong and scrunchy-sounding. This was a surprise to him, since he’d expected it to be an empty cavity. Since cavities are not usually characterised by scrunchy oblongs, he investigated further by twiddling it around in his fingers. The scrunchy layer moved slightly against a harder interior, and the whole thing was reasonably rigid but light. Winston became rather excited as he concluded the likely identity of the object and removed it from his pocket – it was a chocolate bar! This was an unexpected turn of good fortune; he had been expecting a cold and tedious walk towards a shop, for no greater pleasure than buying milk just after he needed it, but what he’d actually got was a cold and tedious walk with a chocolate bar. Much better.
                A second source of surprise was the realisation that he’d been wearing this coat again for a couple of weeks, and must not have tried to use his pockets even once during that time. This bar had been tucked away in the pocket for at least a year, and was showing signs of seasonal turbulence – the chocolate had clearly been melted many times, flowing into the edges of the wrapper and taking on its shape perfectly, then freezing solid again. Still, Winston wasn't going to discriminate against it on such flimsy grounds as its physical appearance – as long as it still tasted sweet he was willing to give it a go. Food poisoning was a small price to pay for that.
                The chocolatey surprise kept Winston going for a good couple of minutes, causing him to amble along slightly more slowly, but with a great deal more contentment than before. He rode that wave of happiness long after the bar was finished, and found himself walking though the automatic door of the mini-supermarket in no time at all. Now his work really began.
                Dead ahead were the crisps and chocolates – sirens of deliciousness leading the good-ship Winston into the rocks of junk-food-that-Leah-did-not-want-in-the-house. Winston turned away in an effort to resist their calorific temptations; he could almost taste the MSG and sugar from here, and it was all he could do to force himself to step in the direction of the fridges. Were it not for the pocket-chocolate, he may not have been able to make it. Mercifully he was victorious, and made it beyond the land of saturates and false promises.
                Winston stopped by the sandwich meats to recover. He’d conquered the toughest part of his journey, but it was not yet over; before he reached his milky prize he would have to make it past the cheeses, press on through the yoghurt, and circumnavigate the perilous spreads - sunflower and margarine alike. He took some deep breaths, set his eyes on the goal, and strode into action. Within a few steps he had arrived at his destination, slightly behind a gentleman in a grey coat holding a bunch of grapes, and considered that he had perhaps overestimated the various dairy challenges between here and the entrance. Or perhaps he’d just grown that much as a person; no more was he the bright-eyed young man who had stood by the meats so long ago. After the ordeals he had been through, the trials of the udder were nought but child’s play.
                Feeling like a mighty conqueror, Winston waited patiently behind the coated gentleman. After a few seconds, he decided to wait impatiently instead. A few seconds more and the time for action was once again nigh for the hero of dairy. He started to lean around the man to reach for a two-pint bottle, but stopped when the gentleman turned to face him.
                “I was a feeling a little melancholy, so I thought I’d look at these grapes. To cheer myself, you know?” the man said.
                “Er, yeah I suppose.” Winston answered, sympathising with a man who tried to take joy from groceries. “Is it helping?” he enquired curiously.
                “Not really, no.”
                “Oh.” There was a silence. The man then dropped the bunch of grapes on the floor and started to walk away.
                “Be careful - there’s grapes all over the floor here…” he said as he went, pointing vaguely behind himself at the floor and turning his head slightly towards the grapes.
                “Ok… thanks.” Winston replied unsurely. He looked at grapes on the floor for a few moments as they rolled away, and tiptoed over them to position himself better in front of the milk. A rack of expiry dates and coloured lids faced him, glowing like a treasure chest in an adventure film. Quite why the fridge needed a backlight was something which escaped Winston a little, but he slowly scanned the bottles, in search of the most futuristic expiry he could find. The front row held only milk which would expire within the next couple of days, and the row behind seemed to have expired already. They were cunningly hidden, but Winston was a seasoned veteran at milk selection, and dived past even the third row to the very back. He grabbed the handle of a two-pint bottle, which was jammed tightly into formation, and began to heave at it awkwardly. There wasn't nearly enough room to lift the bottle vertically above the others, and his arm was already at a sub-optimal angle for milk retrieval, but Winston persevered. Soon his efforts to lift smoothly became hard yanks, and he heard ominous crunching sounds as the bottles became crushed and distorted. He assumed that it was what birthing a plastic calf would feel like.
                For longer than he would care to admit Winston’s battle with the milk raged on, the cage-like rack rattling and shaking violently with every heave. Semi-skimmler wasn't going to yield to Winston without a fight on this day. Every now and again there would be some slight motion as the bottle slipped free briefly, before wedging again and mounting a new defence.  Eventually, Winston wiggled it free of the vice-like grip of its comrades, only for the lid to slam into the bottom of the shelf above. From here the game was different – a matter of bending and contortion, with a worrying number of further crunching sounds in accompaniment. The lid slipped against the shelf, playing a muted glockenspiel and leaving a trail of plastic shavings, and the bottom bounced along the other lids, creating an ever deeper dent in the plastic. After a sterling effort from both sides, however, Winston bested his foe and the bottle was free. The grapes on the floor had, sadly, sustained a great deal of collateral damage – such is the cost of war.
                Winston looked at his prize and vanquished enemy – it bore the scars of battle across all of its surface. The lid was tattered from the metal shelf, the bottom was caved in from countless impacts, and the sides were crushed and fractured from the mangling and heaving. This wouldn't do at all; there was no way that he could adequately explain this adventure to Leah, and she certainly wouldn't want the most mutilated bottle from the shop. So, by way of honouring his opponent and keeping himself from harm, Winston selected a second bottle, from the now loosened row in the rack. This time it came out cleanly, without any sign of a struggle; it seemed that the nation of decanted lactates had well and truly submitted to Winston’s dominion.
                After returning the crushed and humiliated bottle back into its recess, Winston turned his back on the rack and walked away towards the till, leaving footprints of mashed grape as he went. The path towards the checkout passed the fruit and vegetables, where Winston saw that there had been more than one crime committed against the stock of this shop today – the melancholy man had apparently spent some time choosing his viewing-grapes. The grocery section was in disarray; apples were nestled in the bananas, oranges were strewn across the floor in front of the aubergines, and the kiwis had no business being so thoroughly riddled with limes. The true horror, though, was the fate of the grapes. To describe them as crushed and bruised would be to describe the Grand Canyon as a scratch in a rock – seeded and seedless alike, the wine-wannabes had been obliterated, pureed into a soup by a berserker’s rage.
                ‘Maybe these are the grapes of wrath.’ Winston thought, before descending into a fit of giggles at himself and nearly dropping his war-trophy into the fruity viscera.
                After a hearty cackle at his own tremendous unintentional wit, Winston reasoned that if anyone saw him laughing uncontrollably in the presence of such catastrophic destruction, they might reasonably suspect that he was the culprit. Unwilling to be accused of someone else’s mayhem, especially when he’d caused his own perfectly good mayhem elsewhere, Winston decided to make good his escape, past the mercifully untouched pineapples – perhaps they had been left whole as witnesses, to tell the world what was coming.
                Winston wasted no time in approaching the till, eager to put the harrowing sights of the grocery behind him. The self-service checkout was empty, allowing him to avoid contact with yet another person and any strange compulsions they might have towards fruit. The authoritarian instructions rang out in their comfortingly dehumanised way, reminding Winston that he was not in the presence of a real person. He didn't really think that anyone would judge him for purchasing some milk, but one could never be too careful. They might go one step further than casual judgement and actually try to strike up a conversation with him, which simply couldn't be allowed to happen. Under normal circumstances it would have been bad enough, but he had been through too much this morning already – there was no telling what he might say when asked how he was or how his morning had been so far. The machine wouldn't try to engage with him like that; the most personal it would try to get would be to ask if he had his own bags. He didn't.
                Being a firm believer in never emptying his pockets properly, Winston was able to produce enough loose change to purchase an impoverished eastern European nation, which meant that he was just about able to cover the cost of his milk. One coin at a time, he fed the acceptor slot and listened to the currency kerplunk being played inside. It was somehow pleasant to hear his payment landing in a pile of change inside the machine, which was in stark contrast to his usual feelings when money left his possession to be locked away from him.
                Taking it under advisement that he should take his bags and strive to have a nice day, Winston took his milk and exited the shop, back to the dismal outdoors. The clouds had become somewhat more aggressive during the time he’d been in the shop, and the daylight had snuck away whilst no-one was looking. It’d turn up eventually, maybe in a few days. Carrying his precious cargo in a carrier bag, which served no purpose other than to hurt his fingers more than the handle on the bottle would, Winston set off towards home again. He found himself hurrying so that the milk did not warm up too much, but then realised that it was colder outside today than it was in the fridge. Practically speaking, this meant he still had to hurry, but now it was to avoid the milk freezing in the bottle. That would be the cruellest fate of all – being able to see the milk he needed, the milk he deserved, but knowing that he could not pour it no matter how much he tried. Until it thawed in a few minutes of course.
                With no surprise pocket-chocolate, and an increased burden to carry, the return journey felt longer than the trip to the shop. He willed himself to be farther along the street and wished for his door to loom ahead of him, without the tedious necessity of having to ambulate along the pavement. His milk bottle was not a lamp though, and it did not contain a genie. Even if it did, Winston supposed that he wouldn't have spent one of his wishes on bringing his house slightly closer anyway, so the whole thing was futile.
                If he had a Sherpa then he’d be able to offload his milk and complete the hike un-laden. It would involve having him on permanent standby though, which implied there’d have to be a salary to pay. He couldn't afford to pay competitive Sherpa rates just for the occasional milk run, so yet another grand design was ruined by reality. As if to compound his heartbreak, Winston felt the first spots of rain spattering the back of his neck. The time for hurrying was now. Running was out of the question however; the risk of slipping and falling onto the milk was just too high. It would be cripplingly embarrassing to have to return to the shop and purchase another bottle whilst his jeans were saturated with semi-skinned remorse.
                Power walking along the street was never going to last for long – it was a terrifyingly short time before Winston became weary and had to slow back to his original pace. He was warmer now, so that was something, but the rain was picking up and he would certainly be saturated by the time he reached the front door. It was his fate to get wet, and the price of going out for milk. He only hoped that Leah thought it was worth it.
                Winston hurriedly opened the front door and hopped through, placing the milk on the floor and standing still for a few moments, contemplating how wet he was. Once he had given the situation the appropriate amount of attention, he removed his coat and narrowly caught himself before throwing it on the floor – Leah wouldn't like that one bit. Selflessly as ever, Winston hung the coat straight onto the coat rack by the door. Sainthood would surely be on its way for him.
                Once he’d removed his soggiest articles of clothing, Winston marched his milk through to the kitchen, and placed it neatly in the fridge. Satisfied with his morning’s work, he sat at the kitchen table and breathed a deep sigh of relief – another job well done.

                Several hours later, he heard the front door opening – Leah was home from work.
                “Hi Winston!” she shouted through the house.
                “Hello!” he shouted back, hurrying to the doorway to meet her.
                “I shut the wardrobe door with my back while I was getting dressed and I got the milk like you asked, are you proud of me?” he asked expectantly.
                Leah giggled tiredly “Of course I am honey. Well done.”
                Winston’s smile stretched all the way to the shop and back.


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