The tweet outlasts the joke

Forty thousand people I will never meet now have a still of my face doing the bit about the worst minute of my life. Pryce's mate called it a bravery arc. A bravery arc is the kind of phrase that makes me want to set fire to something. It makes the panic sound like a story. It wasn't a story. It was me in a corridor trying to remember how to swallow.

The clip will outlive the room. The room is already gone. I'm the one left holding the still.

In the back room of the bookshop I opened Yara's text. Three words. Bit has my kitchen in it. I read it four times. She didn't say it was good or bad. She said it had her kitchen in it, which is worse, because she saw through it. She heard me trying to be brave and she heard the bit underneath and she told me she heard and then she went quiet and I went quiet and now the quiet is four days old and the bit has my name and her kitchen attached to it on the internet forever.

Imogen from Soho emailed. I wrote back two polite sentences. I didn't mention the tweet. I don't know why. Maybe because I wanted her to think I was someone who gets booked, not someone who watches his own number climb.

The Moleskine sat on the table for an hour before I opened it. I wrote one sentence about the tweet and crossed it out. One about the kitchen and crossed it out. One about Bill warm and crossed it out so hard the pen tore the page.