Cold Open, Small Room

I can hold a room, then somebody better at rooms walks in and turns mine into a cupboard. Marcus Pryce barely said anything. One sentence about the Radox bit, and suddenly I felt like a student again, standing at the bar with my whole act crowded behind my teeth.

That is the bit I hate: I can turn fear into something strangers can carry home, but one measured comment from a man whose name opens doors makes me want to put my head through the glass. The Radox material felt suddenly embarrassingly close to me, which is probably why it works. A cold open, he said. As if the joke had been waiting behind a door and I had misplaced the key.

I watched him know Bill, the barman and two bookers by name. Petty as it is, I wanted him to say my name again just to measure its size beside his. I rank things I should never rank.

The decision came clean: Pryce will not be in any room that matters to me. I will not perform gratitude in front of him or hand him the power to tell me whether I arrived. I would rather stay small than make him my witness.

On the Northern line, the notebook stayed in my pocket. Writing the opening would have made it official. In the dark, I finally saw it: the joke was never really about the shower product. It was about the second I realised I had been describing myself without admitting it. I laughed at that, which felt dangerous. Maybe the cold open is simply how badly I need the cold open to exist.