My flat is gone then too.

Under my flat they died. Killed themselves under my flat and I heard nothing and now my flat is gone.

I remember talking to them, at tea, after it happened. After the suicide. Double suicide, tragic, the news must have said. After that and after the news I was sitting with them in my flat as calm as can be. We were talking and I was thinking, Last night I was cleaning up your blood. I had gone to see them. Just to talk, like neighbours do. And their blood was there everywhere. What would you do? Call the police? I didn't. They kept their flat very clean and wouldn't be happy with the mess. I was a good neighbour so, I started scrubbing. I could have called the police but I didn't. I decided to save them from them scrubbing. Save them all. Perfectly normal.

Don't fink on me.

So, this happened everyday for three months. For three months they kept coming up to my flat for tea, perfectly normal, and every day for three months I would sit there thinking, Last night I was cleaning up your blood, perfectly normal, because every night for three months I would go down to their flat and start scrubbing. Perfectly normal. And all the time I was there sitting and drinking and talking and thinking and scrubbing I was constantly aware of this ticking. In my flat, you see, there was only one clock. A brass one with two bells to wake me in the morning, after the scrubbing. To wake me after the scrubbing, the bells had to be very loud. So was the ticking. Every morning the bells would start ringing, Time's up, stop sleeping. And every second, so would the ticking. There I was, in my flat, which I'm sure is gone now, where I had wasted so much time sitting and drinking and talking and thinking, always there with a clock--loud--ticking. A metaphor on my mantelpiece. Perfectly normal. Funny I hadn't noticed it before.

But, perfectly harmless? There's a question. There's something to rub a stone over. There's something to tie strings in knots over. There's something to set your hair on fire over. There was a metaphor on my mantlepiece and I never even noticed. Was a metaphor. Was a clock, was a mantlepiece. Was a flat, was a street. It all was and is all gone now but for the ticking. I left the clock in my flat and my flat is gone now, I'm sure, but I still hear the ticking. Even now. Sometimes in the morning I wake to the sound of my own breathing, and that leaves me thinking, Good, I didn 't forget while I was sleeping. I didn't forget to breath. I didn't stop breathing. But, even that's disturbing. Because living's just breathing but breathing's just ticking and ticking's just prelude to an alarm. See how metaphors tumble into each other.

No, I've met too many metaphors to think they're harmless anymore. Even once you try to leave them behind.

You see, I haven't really left yet. Not in the strictest sense of the word. Not in the strictest sense of the word "leave." Not if you look it up in a dictionary. I've done this. I keep a dictionary by my bed, like other people keep bibles. I like to know what words mean. Precisely. Everything means something and sometimes you need to know what. So I keep a dictionary beside my bed. Just in case of an emergency. That is how I know I haven't left yet. I haven't left that street. I know I said my neighbours died three months before I left. And I know I said I had tea with them for three months after the suicide. And I know I said I'm sure the street must be gone by now. So I know that means that street must be behind me in time somewhere. But I know if I said I've left I'd be lying because I haven't. Not precisely. Better to say I'm still leaving. Better to say my neighbours killed themselves three months before I began leaving. Better to say I began at the beginning of leaving three months after the suicide and now I'm continuing through the middle of leaving and I hope to reach the end of leaving sometime in the near future and then I will stop. Do you understand what I'm saying? Precisely? Maybe you need a dictionary.