Logan jabbed a finger at the screen till it shut up. Sagged in the visitor’s chair, legs still up on the bed.

Cramp chewed at his calves. Gritting his teeth, he levered his feet down from the wrinkled hospital sheets onto the grey terrazzo floor – cool beneath his socks. Scrubbed at his face. His voice came out as a deep gravelly growl. ‘Unngh. . . Time is it? ’

Blink. Took a few goes to get his phone in focus, but eventually 06:30 wobbled into view. ‘Crap.’

Whose bloody clever idea was it to read a dirty big lump of a novel till four in the morning?

Samantha was asleep, lying there with her mouth open. Didn’t matter how many times he told her the spiders were going to sneak in and lay eggs in her head, she always slept like a corpse. Lucky for some.

He winced his way out of the chair and limp-shuffled through into the room’s tiny bathroom. Hauled off his shirt and had a spot-wash in the sink with the bar of institutional soap that smelled like a dentist’s office. Rubbed a finger around his teeth till they were all squeaky. Spat. Stared at the baggy-eyed, tousle-haired wreck in the mirror.

It’d have to do.

Logan hauled his shirt on again, crept back into the room, kissed Sam on the forehead, gathered up his jacket and shoes, and tip-toed out of the door.

The corridor was quiet, just the far off wub-wub-wub of a floor polisher, and the all-pervading hum of the hospital. He found a seat and pulled on his shoes.

Someone tutted. ‘Oh dear. . .’

He looked up and there was Claire, her blue nurse’s uniform pristine and ironed.

She shook her head. ‘Did you sleep in your clothes again? You look like someone sat on you when you were wet.’

He tied his laces. ‘You’re in early.’

‘Bill’s piles are killing him, and when Bill can’t sleep no one else is allowed to either.’ A sigh. ‘I keep telling him, your haemorrhoids’ existence is conditional on your perception of them, the pain you feel is a result of a priori reasoning based on your construct of self. Of course he says they’re not conditional and his perception of them is derived from experience which makes it a posteriori, not some airy fairy a priori notion outwith the scope of empirical knowledge.’

Logan stared at her. ‘The evenings must be just packed.’

A shrug. ‘For René Descartes it was, “I think, therefore I am.” With Bill it’s, “My arse hurts, so I’ve got piles.”’

He stood. Smiled. ‘Any chance you can keep the metaphysics down to a dull roar today? She was up late last night.’