Back to the children. It had felt better in the imagining. Now tired children are just sitting there looking at the professor who isn’t even a professor. It is too light, the shades have already been taken down, his belongings are in boxes that he wanted to store somewhere but hadn’t found anyplace to leave them. His travel bag is on the ground in front of the children, who sit on two chairs. No noises from outside. Traffic rolls by quietly, people are muffled because there seems no more reason to be loud. There sit the children, and it is getting increasingly embarrassing. Particularly now, confronted with the shabbiness of the place in the light and in a nearly empty state. So this is it, the grand flat on Kensington Church Street. Two tiny rooms last renovated thirty years ago, black outlines where furniture and prints had been, linoleum floor. Perhaps his life hadn’t been so wonderful after all.

The children look at the floor.

The little assholes.

Their empty eyes lead to the conclusion that they aren’t so proficient with the language. Great. “Listen to me,” says the professor who isn’t even a professor but rather a foolish jobless person.

“Listen,”

The professor begins to read aloud from an old edition of Shakespeare. The whole thing takes into the wee hours.

The children will be picked up later. They would have preferred to service a client who just had a quick wank. Over and done with.

It was the final day of his old life. And now he sits in front of a fire, the old man, and

HANNAH