eighty per cent said nobody

Steve texted this morning. How's the hour. And the chest. I said the hour was eighty per cent. I said the chest was being a chest. Both of those are lies that sound like answers if you don't push. Steve didn't push. Steve never pushes. That's why I can lie to him clean.

The Scotsman freelancer slid a card under my door. Handwriting I'll keep. Car park bit is the best new writing I've seen at the fringe. I've done one preview. I posted it. Made it into content. But here's what I didn't post: yesterday that same line made James Holborn's mouth do something I read as pity. Today a stranger wrote it down in pen. Both can be true. I keep picking the card up like it can cancel yesterday out. It can't.

Eleven o'clock showcase. Seven people, three reviewers. The Pleasance dressed promotion up as a cupboard and I made it into a caption. Funny how everything I can't metabolise turns into a post. My mum is on a bus tour at the same hour. More people on her coach than in my room. I didn't tell her that one. I won't.

Bought Yara a pint. Her queue went round the block. Mine was half full. I am not writing those numbers again. I counted them. I will keep counting them. She didn't say anything about the difference. That was worse. Sat there paying tax on my own face with a lager going warm.

Did the line again tonight. Didn't smile through it. Holborn wasn't there. I thought about him anyway. I think about him in every silence now. The bit landed. I think it landed. I've lost the ability to tell.

The chest is still being a chest.