Alex beside me, reading a book of lands that never were. We're on Tottenham Court road, American chain coffee shop, across from the flat where Katherine sleeps and Wendy keeps the guard. The world's every language drifting. He is happy to be with me, though I'm lost in my notes from the British Museum, writing, eavesdropping French and then Polish. To watch my work and to have his book and to sit like an adult at a chain coffee shop, pleasure.
When the man rushes up the stairs yelling, I think city, ignore. He throws ice and water at a couple, slurs them for gay. All rise, I rise, and he is gone, the drunk. Water on the floor, ice not even close. Like ocean that closes round an idiot's yell noise returns. He was never there, even the couple cold glancing the cubes on the rug, back to their talk. Alex's eyes are wide. I know this evening's talk will be of hatred and life that continues all the same, Tottenham Court or Dupont Circle or in the histories my notebook failing to contain.
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