The sun was warm on Henry’s face as he stepped out of the patio door onto the deck. Breakfast was all laid out; fruit, granola, pastries, and the smell of bacon was wafting out from the kitchen. Looking around, he could not see anyone else out in the garden, so he settled at the table and started to serve himself some of the fruit.

It was good to be back in Cape Town, he could feel himself relaxing back into the pace of life and the sweet, succulent guava and mango were definitely helping to make his first morning feel as real as can be. The mountain was the other part of that anchor to memory and familiarity; ever present, always magnifying the character of the city whether clear and bright like that morning, or shrouded in its ‘tablecloth’.

He was musing on the view and finishing his fruit when Isabella appeared, as if by magic, and laid a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of him.

“Welcome home, Henry. We’ve all missed you.”

Henry smiled up at her, happy to see her, and then he started on the fry up.

Time has all of the power in our lives. Time enough to work, but not time enough to play; time enough to lose as much as we can win. It has been said that time is the fire in which we burn, and yet it is also the cooling spring in which we cleanse our souls. It is everything to us.

When the lightning struck the streetlight I can remember seeing time almost stop. As the power of the heavens surged down the pole and into the ground not four feet from me, seconds seemed as minutes, and I was completely aware of not only what was happening, but what was yet to come.

The pressure wave came surging towards me along the sidewalk, as the residual charge in the air made every hair on my body stand on end, and I knew that before another second had ticked by I would be launched into the air, backwards away from the streetlight.

I want to be able to say that I had a witty thought, or a great insight in that split second, but all I really thought about was Frannie. Then just the word ‘bugger’, large at the front of my mind.

“Morning, Cal!”

I wave from behind the counter. Jimmy, like many of my customers, is almost always jolly when I see him. I often wonder if he and the others are quite so jolly after they have left the shop with their papers and their cigarettes and other sundries that I provide to their lives.

“Turned out nice again, eh Cal?”

Molly never says anything different, and after having her as a customer for nearly ten years I know to simply add a ten-pack of Marlboro Lights to the total for the copy of the Guardian and the pack of sugar free gum that she has placed on the counter as an accompaniment to these unchanging, empty words.

Shopkeepers know all too well that the greater share of human interaction is fleeting and meaningless, but I always try to remember how precious it is to me when I have a regular customer that will actually step beyond platitudes and linger for a few moments to share an opinion or better still, really care about mine.

As Molly and Jimmy leave I tidy the counter and wait for Susan to call in.

“What do you mean you’re not on Twitter?”

David was staring at me, slack-jawed and wide-eyed as he finished the above question. His reaction was as if I’ve just told him that I don’t enjoy having a woman blow me, or that even though I’m a meat eater I think that bacon is crap. The thing is that it’s a no-brainer to me; I don’t need to broadcast my every thought every moment that I thought it. Sure I’m working in “Web” and I blog, and I’m on Facebook, or Farcebook as I like to call it, but why is it beyond belief that I don’t have a Twitter account?

David got himself together and tried again;

“I mean how do you stay in touch with everything, man?”

This was not the first time I’d heard this, and I already had a stock answer;

“What did you do before Aprl 2007? Were you in a desert of solitude without any sense of human connection? Seriously?”

He didn’t get it, he went on for about another hour, so guess what? Yeah, I have a Twitter account now. Now the only thing left to do is to work out what the Hell to do with it?

I ran my fingertip along her shoulders and slid my other hand around her waist, pulling her gently against me, letting her know that I was there. She laid a hand on top of mine and gently squeezed it as she relaxed back into my embrace. She turned her head a little and whispered;

“Hello, Baby. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

I rolled my palm over her shoulder, cupping it and massaging it softly as I let her know that I was happy to be awake by starting to lay kisses around the nape of her neck.

“I see. You’re quite happy to be awake then?”

She asked the question in such a way that I had a distinct impression that she was playfully raising an eyebrow, but there was no brush off there; I could tell that as I felt her other hand gently running up the inside of my thigh.

“I love you, Baby. Take me to bed, or lose me forever.”

We laughed together; it had been such a long time since one of us had quoted the movie that had brought us together all those years before. I scooped her up in my arms, and carried her back to bed.

“Wake up.”

Fran was shaking me hard, her hands gripping tightly onto my shoulders. I clawed my way out of my sleeping state. Just as I was about to ask her what in the Hell was wrong with her she clamped her hand over my mouth and whispered in my ear;

“Listen. Do you hear that?”

I strained to hear whatever it was that she wanted me to hear, but the silence was all I could detect. I was about to tell her she was crazy, that it was just the wind, or the cat, when I did hear something. Someone or something knocked over something breakable, because there was an almighty crash from downstairs; something glass or china broke against the floor. The fear that ran through me at that moment was electric; someone unwelcome was in our house. Our son was sleeping down the hall from us, and the stairs separated us from him, so my thoughts immediately turned to his safety. I turned over and whispered to Fran;

“Wait here for me; I’m going to go and get James before he makes any noise.”

She nodded and I slipped quietly out of bed.

“And what is the purpose of your stay, Sir?”

I smile at the immigration official;

“Some business, some vacation. You know how it goes.”

They nod and smile back, then hand my passport back to me and I’m in. Even someone like me, with no nefarious thoughts, with money in their pocket and with no plans to out stay their welcome, entering the United States can be a nerve-wracking business. Still now that I had passed the test I could make my way into the City and focus on the meetings that were the genuine justification for flying half way around the world, and even with that pressure hanging over my head, that was a relief.

I headed across the bridge from the terminal to the BART station and having bought myself a ticket waited on the platform for my high speed ride into the heart of downtown. London could learn a lot from San Francisco on this front. This was my second visit in just over a year and I was still impressed by how simply, efficiently and cheaply the airport is connected to the main part of the City.

“Hello there.”

Oh God, she’s grinning in that way; you know what I mean, the way that your scary aunty did when you were a child. It’s been a constant stream of them, horny fifty-something widows and divorcées, ever since I boarded the boat. I really am starting to wish I’d listened to my friends who had warned me about the dangers of holidaying alone, on a cruise liner. Don’t misunderstand, if I was less than fifteen years younger than any of them then I would be happy of the attention, but not only am I still in a place where I want my lovers to at least be capable of having children, but I am on holiday alone not to find a replacement for my last one, but to simply get away and forget. Still, I am not able to simply ignore her or anyone else; we are on this relatively small ship together for ten days after all, though thankfully four of them were done;

“Hello. Taking the air?”

She nodded and sat down next to me, unbidden.

“I’ll be honest, I saw you head this way after dinner and I wanted to talk to you.”

My heart sank, the last conversation that had gone this way – after lunch – had been very depressing.

Hot, too hot. Mouth dry, throat hurts. Eyes open? No, too bright.

“Are you ready to tell us what we wnat to know, Mr. Devlin?”

That voice… Who is that?

“Your current level of discomfort is not the end of the road. There is more to come if you don’t give us the information that we want.”

Have to focus. Is that the one who was called Ignatius by the tall one? Yes, the voice of Ignatius, I recognise him.

“Mr. Devlin?”

Open eyes; slowly. So bright in here. Can’t see him, must be a PA system. Sit up, straight back. Show him strength; resolve. Try to speak;

“N… Noh.”

Throat so dry, can barely make a sound.

“Would you like a drink, Mr. Devlin?”

This is how they start. I say yes to anything and then I might say yes to more things. Have to fight the temptation, but so thirsty.

“How can that hurt, Mr. Devlin? Surely you can accept a glass of water?”

“No th… No thankyou.”