The blowsy whore threw yesterday’s worries out of the window along with the contents of the pisspot from under her sagging bed.

Alternating cigarettes with pieces of toast, she chewed over the fact that bread goes stale but flour doesn’t, and wondered why.

She poured some gin into a coffee cup and looked away from her reflection in the dusty glass of the wall clock. The clock was permanently stuck at ten to two but it never seemed to matter. She remembered when the second hand used to whirl around the dial, seeming to count the days away minute by minute. She poured another gin.

The cold timber of the kitchen chair made her back ache. Still, she sat there drinking gin, contemplating the purple marks on her arms and finding shapes that resembled animals, as a child does in the clouds. She looked up and felt guilty about the four days of grimy dishes piled in the sink. It was cool today.

She scratched herself and decided to bathe. As she walked unsteadily down the hall, a door opened then closed quickly. The noise was like a gunshot in the silence of the morning. In the bathroom she saw herself in the cracked mirror, and the warped reflection reminded her of the little girl she used to be. She laughed and sung “happy birthday” softly.

Dressed in a smock with comparatively few stains, she sat at the table, opened another bottle of gin, smiled at the clock and waited for the knock at the door.