I walk down the road until I’m under a railway bridge. The walls of the underpass are painted with variations on paintings by William Blake. From the names of the roads in the area, I assume that Blake once lived somewhere around here. Right in the middle of the mural is a version of The Ghost of a Flea—a monstrous man with an alarmingly, almost disgustingly muscular back and legs, and long fingernails. I turn so I’m facing the picture, which is slightly larger than life-size, and about twenty times bigger than the original. His tongue curls up, like an upside-down version of an actual flea’s proboscis, and his eyes are wide and hungry. He is looking into a bowl that is empty. The bowl probably once had blood in it, freshly extracted from an animal, and the ghost of a flea has just finished drinking it. Or maybe there is a little bit still at the bottom. I feel dizzy, looking into the painting of the bowl—envious of the flea who can bite and feed from an animal without them even noticing, whose stomach is likely full. I’m still looking at it when I hear footsteps down the road. A man’s shoes—tap, tap, tap—and drunk ramblings, and swearing between inaudible words, so I turn around and start walking back toward the studios.

Later, I’m at St. Pancras station, waiting for my suitcase at the luggage storage. I’ve got the keys to the studio in the pocket of my shirt. It feels like I have the keys to my new life in my pocket, while the suitcase contains my old life.

“Hey,” a man I’ve never seen before says, as he walks past me, coming from the direction of the men’s toilets.

“Umm, hey?” I say, frowning. I shuffle up closer to the counter of the luggage storage, imagining that there’s a kind of bubble around it, inside which I’m safe.

The guy working here comes out from the area where all the luggage is kept. He has a small, narrow head and a plump body covered by a large, loose-fitting shirt. He’s looking at the ticket I gave him when I arrived. “Is this definitely the right ticket?” he asks without looking at me.