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There it was again, like a signal along a wire. A clear brilliant flash of pain from A to B. What was A? What was B? Kleinzeit didn’t want to know. His hypotenuse was on that side, he thought. Maybe not. He’d always been afraid to look at anatomical diagrams. Muscles, yes. Organs, no. Nothing but trouble to be expected from organs.

Flash. A to B again. His diapason felt hard and swollen. His scalp was dry and flaky. He put his face in front of the bathroom mirror.

I exist, said the mirror.

What about me? said Kleinzeit.

Not my problem, said the mirror.

Ha ha, laughed the hospital bed. It was nowhere near Kleinzeit, hadn’t ever seen him, was in another part of town altogether. Ha ha, laughed the hospital bed, and sang a little song that hummed through its iron limbs and chipped enamel. You and me, A to B. I have a pillow for you at my head, said the bed, I have a chart for you at my foot. Sister and her nurses listen through the night. Drip-feed tubes and bottles, oxygen cylinders and masks. Everything laid on. Don’t be a stranger.

Push off, said Kleinzeit. He left the mirror empty and went to his job, staying behind his face through the corridors of the Underground and into a train.

NOTHING HAPPENED, said the headline on the tabloid next to him. He ignored it, looked at the naked girl on the next page, then screwed his head round to see the headline again, NOTHING HAPPENED AGAIN, said the headline. Do you mind? said the face that was reading the paper. It turned away with the headline and the naked girl. Brute, thought Kleinzeit, and closed his eyes.

What is there to tell you? he said to an unknown audience in his mind. What’s the difference who I am or if I am?

The audience shifted in their seats, yawned.

All right, said Kleinzeit, let me put it this way: you read a book, and in the book there’s this man sitting in his room all alone. Right?

The audience nodded.

Right, said Kleinzeit. But he isn’t really alone, you see. The writer is there to tell about it, you‘re there to read about it. He’s not alone the way I’m alone. You‘re not alone when there’s somebody there to see it and tell about it. Me, I’m alone.

What else is new? said the audience.

Possibility of nothing this evening, clearing towards morning, said a weather report.

Let me put it this way, said Kleinzeit. This will bring us down to fundamentals: I have a Gillette Techmatic razor. The blade is a continuous band of steel, and after every five shaves I wind it to the next number. Number one is the last, which is of course significant, yes? Then I stay on number one for ten, fifteen shaves maybe, before I get a new cartridge. I ask myself why. There you have it, eh?

The audience had left, the empty seats yawned at him.