A security man arrived and ordered him out of the car; he stepped out without objection, with the customary, ‘I hope you have no objection, sir, but I am obliged to remove your car from this property as you are causing a hold up and contravening…’

The rest drifted into a significance he cared not for and there was no complaint from Ever as he was handed back the keys to his car, which now stood on the roadside, securely off In-N-Out Burger property, and he was no longer receiving abuse from the waiting customers. He was given a free bottle of water, and with,

‘You take care now.’

From the security man, Ever climbed back in his car and just sat there.

Blank, wondering whether his soul had ever really come back into him as a foetus and what was he doing leaving his wife, taking four weeks annual leave in one go, buying a gun, lying to an art gallery and including a woman he barely knew in a deception involving a collection of artwork, justifiably but heartlessly bought by a gallery owner.

Who he hated.

His thoughts, however, were not in that sequential order but came darting in a jumble of words and in varying intensity, with worry being the dominant emotion.

What had he done?

Who was he?

Was he about to break again?

He had taken himself off his pills six months ago, because he felt he could cope and because he had lost all sexual desire, something that he felt drove his wife away, well, further away than she already was, she was never too close.

And the frames of the film had started to miss.

There were bits that jumped, he missed the continuity from moment to moment. A jump like a turn of the head, then the head was back without the completed movement having happened in his brain, without the time experience that made it a continuous movement.

That had happened again, while he was considering going for the full burger and fries at the In-N-Out.

The frames leapt, he didn’t feel like him. He didn’t know who he felt like because he had no term of reference to feel like anyone else. But it was another person, another feeling, the feeling that he could do things that he wouldn’t want to tell anybody else about, through shame.

Shame, that was it, it was a shame to be him at that time.

He felt the overwhelming sadness and fear that he would lose control and be back, back in an institution with all that he wanted to achieve gone.

It wasn’t that he wanted to live long anyway, just live to make a little mark.

To live and to feel love and tell people he loved them, really loved them, he thought, and that he was not full of anything bad.

He wasn’t bad.

He just didn’t feel too good.

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