"Dear World..."

Even harder than I thought, writing. Three drafts already. Should have paid the ghost much more for Memoirs of a Professional Cad. These pills are slow. La farmacia around the corner sold me them. I paid a little over the odds. That’s the price you pay for not having a scrip. Chap didn’t speak much English, but we managed a transaction: I with My Mayorquina-tinged Castilian, and he with his begrudging Spanish. Catalan is beyond me. An awkward language for awkward people: good luck to them.

This hotel really is a frightful dump. Cheap furniture, grubby curtains. Anonymity costs more than money, I find. Oh, it’s nice enough, Casteldelfels, but it’s not – well, it’s not anywhere really. How appropriate. Wish I hadn’t told Niven what I did. A long time ago now, maybe he’ll have forgotten. Mind you he “remembered” enough in that bloody Balloon book. Some of it was even true. Hope he doesn’t write another.

Five bottles of yellow-jackets standing on the table, if one yellow-jacket should accidentally fall…

***

The worst thing has been the forgetting. Lucky the men in the white coats weren’t summoned, after I dismantled the piano with that axe. I know I’m not all there – but I think that was a perfectly sane reaction to knowing I’d never play it again.

I look at El Pais, the newspaper I picked up from outside the hotel room door a few pills ago. Two days I’ve been here. Glad no-one found me. Not sure I’m so happy that no-one has been looking. Three pieces of paper. What are they? When did I write them?

“Dear World…” It is my writing. Ah yes, well there we are, you see. Looking at these three farewell notes I’m not sure which to burn. Maybe I’ll leave them all. I am bored, it’s true, but I do not mention the fear. Both the fear of falling to the ground and of the long tumble into nothing. A Swiss-cheese mind is no mind at all.

Getting hard to swallow now, I just couldn’t use the whisky in the end. Not after what happened with Tom. Not sure the water is potable here. Ha, I’ll not be around for any consequences though.

Last bottle, last capsule. Goodbye sweet cesspool, and good luck!