I prepare to jump from the windowledge, but at the back of my head is a voice that says, “What are you doing, you idiot?” But it’s insignificant, that voice. Maybe next time I won’t take it into account.

A pockmarked redheaded man with a leather case in hand hurried along Endell Street, humming.

Endell Street used to be the Tin Pan Alley of London. It is short, drab and quiet. The trade has 

 

It happened just the other day. I can’t sleep. The whole thing makes me sick and throws me into a fever. I work in the park. Pick up papers and various articles with a stick. 

The apartment has been burglarized again. They have taken a record player, a typewriter, a portable radio and other things besides. When I ask the detective if he would recommend a watchdog, he replied, “No, they will only steal the dog as well.” And of course, he was right. They did.

I am up to my calves in the sea, the very beginnings of the sea which stretches before me out to the edge of the sky. My ship, my tiny ship moored in the shallows, rocks back and forth anxiously, like a schoolboy. The waves lap at its side, the cool waters. Ah, let us go, let us set forth, my ship!