Evan Comes felt warmth on his face, and opened his eyes to bright sunshine.
With a quiet groan he looked at the bedside digital clock, which innocently blinked 12:00 in return. How long had he been asleep? It was hard to tell. He pulled on some wrinkled jeans that had been tossed over the chair, and a faded shirt with the name of a band he listened to in college. Before moving to the bathroom, he glanced momentarily at the double bed; despite having always lived alone, he always left the right side untouched.
On the ground floor of his city flat, Evan looked through the front window into the busy street. Cars and bicycles breezed past on their way to somewhere. Men in suits and women in platform shoes strode purposefully by. Everything looked the same as before, he thought to himself. Before… what?
Pressing on the remote control which lay on the arm of a worn champagne-coloured sofa brought a small television set to life, and a talking head was in the middle of detailing the morning news. Evan stared hard at the screen, but the words came tumbling out in an indecipherable heap. And was it just his imagination that the presenter’s mouth was quickly growing out of proportion to the rest of her head? Surely the lipstick didn’t help. It seemed as if her eyes and ears were shrinking to pinheads, while her mouth transformed into a giant loudspeaker. He rubbed his eyes hard, tried (and failed) once more to make any sense from the gushing river of words, and finally switched it off. Another car purred past the window, and then everything was quiet. Evan pulled on a pair of tattered trainers and reached for the keys on the coffee table.
Outside, the sunshine seemed to penetrate his skin and warm him from the inside. He had the brief impression that he might become transparent as the rays worked their way through him and out the other side. Walking down the pavement, he gazed at the people passing him in the other direction. Who are you? he thought to each. He squinted, but most of their heads were fuzzy and indistinct. Some, who were chatting on mobile phones, had distorted features like the news woman. A few had heads so small they seemed to be swallowed in between their shoulders, and one was so hazy and nebulous that he was afraid the wind might blow him away. Rubbing his eyes again, he pushed his way through the door into the café. ‘Regular coffee, please’.
Sitting by the window that faced the sun, Evan pulled a piece of wrinkled A4 and stubby pencil from his pocket, and smoothed the paper on the table, avoiding the wet rings from previous customers. He took a deep breath and sipped the bitter coffee. Staring at the white paper, blindingly bright from the reflection of the sun, he felt his mind begin to move to that place where time moves more slowly, and thoughts still make sense. With a slight smile he scribbled on the paper in a loose, rounded cursive,
What a strange sensation — to surround oneself with the noise of the world, when inside all is quiet!
