There are cat-scratches across the back of my right hand like flightpaths on a map. When she is excited, she darts around the flat and fires herself upon the bed. She stares at me through two-pence pupils; if I approach, she rolls onto her back, exposing her soft grey underbelly, the plumes of fur; I hover my hand above, she wriggles, mouth open, hoists her hind legs up, arms too, fingers spread, claws out for me, she wiggles her entire body then spasms, attacks me so softly, leaps off the bed and darts about, possessed. She comes to stop in the doorway; I go to move; she springs off in a flash. When I have had a drink I am not so cautious — that is when she catches me, my hand bleeds. I sleep with the window open, and she is by my thighs, in the middle of the mattress. I almost roll onto her—‘Sorry, angel.’

The alarm goes, she emerges, bleary-eyed, and the morning is now trailing beneath my curtains—‘The sun is out,’ I say. Slow-blink. She sits on my slippers while I wash myself. Outside it is glorious; bursting from the building lobby I inhale deeply the cold air, unburdened of my coat, swinging my arms quite freely. Would it be so premature to suggest I felt spring settle on my skin as though it were a butterfly gracing petals? It did not matter whether it was spring or not, but only to acknowledge how glorious it was. It is truly a beautiful morning that makes one forget, even if for a moment, the collapse of the west and abhorrent depravity of your fellow man. How despicable everything is! How loathsome! How it wears one down and down and down until they dull.

I get on the train and sit opposite a gentleman in an empty booth. He regards me with an inquiring look—‘You could have sat anywhere else, but chose to sit opposite me?!’ He is offended that I am within his leg-space, perhaps they are fine legs, although the toe of his brown brogues are grazed, he keeps them beneath the chair. ‘Well,’ I say, speechlessly, ‘the seat was available — even though it was opposite you — and I do like the cold side of this carriage, the cold plastic and the glass, the metal, the rubber seals here. And the views, you understand surely, to sit beside the window and look out whenever one wants, away from my wearisome counterparts who are so drained and stare at their phone?’ Even though he has shut his eyes and is trying to sleep, I sense that he is still looking at me for an explanation on this intrusion into his personal space. He must have said something, a response. What did he say? Did I miss it? I continue—‘Okay, I will admit you have me there, the East Anglian landscape is perhaps the most boring in the northern hemisphere, but shortly I will be able to see the house where my cousins grew up, the filthy streams we went paddling in, where I spent my summers, and there, too, is the park where deer roam, the motorway I took to university, the other way to the airport, the stations and their schoolchildren and a grass verge, pigeons with their breasts that flirt and bob. You must understand?’ The stranger says nothing; I believe he has fallen asleep with his legs tucked beneath him.

Left to my own devices it is not long until I become suspicious, eyeing the sleeping gentleman opposite with unspoken accusations: is this the man who cloned my debit card at the weekend? What does such a person look like? Do they sleep peacefully on public transport? I was by myself Friday night, quite innocent — carrying a Swiss accent and looking at pornography, if you must know — when my bank manager asked if I was making a purchase. What is the meaning of this? ‘A suspicious purchase?’ I asked. ‘A Kindle purchase,’ he replied. Absolutely not; he was right to alert me; instead I confessed that I was masturbating, for it seemed far less shameful than cloning a stranger’s card. The bank manager said, without my having prompted him, that masturbating was far less shameful than cloning a stranger’s card — we were in complete agreement — but nonetheless they would have to freeze my card and all my outgoings until the matter was resolved. Now everything is frozen. Just as the weather was starting to turn.

It is hard to see the weather from my office. I am in the basement of an old sanitarium. I am next to the atrium, where light filters down, eventually, after a dozen fights with the dusty surfaces of an old building. Over the glass, too, are metal grates; that is where the rain comes down, and then the gravel at the bottom of the atrium begins to drown, everything gurgles and simmers coldly. But not today, no; one has to get right next to the window, crane their neck and see that five storeys above the sun shines brightly against the top of the building. On my walk at lunch I see upon an otherwise-naked tree there is blossom that is white and thick as paper. Pausing to frame: that will make quite the photograph, but no-one will believe the blossom is white and thick as paper, not on the twenty-fifth of February.

A man is moving in circles and staring at me. He is with a child. His eyes carry quite the weight, but I do not wish to engage with him, so I bear it. I am not expecting anyone! why should I tolerate his gawping? I look up. His face is familiar; I cannot recall immediately. We look at each other. I remember: he is a man I played at a chess tournament last summer — he beat me, but most gentlemanly and friendly with it. I greet him and he says hello, smiling. He probably believes that I am a loner, someone who just hangs around town without company, a pervert with nothing better to do, somebody on the fringes. I would tell him I am not, but it is too late; I am sure he is hurriedly ushering his child away.

I would like to meet someone. Is that so much to ask? I would like to meet someone left-handed, so that we could hold hands all of the time and still be perfectly capable of performing everyday tasks using our dominant hand. That is the dream, but I suppose it will not happen; they want all want children. Who cares which hand they use if they want children. I cannot think of anything worse than having a child. There is a lady coming out of the supermarket, counting her change; I take hold of her shoulder—‘I would rather have an sexually-transmitted disease than a child.’ She gasps and tells me she will have to start counting again.

The cat greets me at our front door and follows me around the flat as I talk to her and pet her and imagine what she is saying back to me. The clock on the oven is still an hour fast but I will not change it; spring will be here soon. It is all time that passes; I have nothing to do; I hold it in my hands, but the time drifts away and I do not think that I miss it.