When he told me he was leaving, I felt like a vase which has just smashed. There were pieces of me all over the tidy, tan tiles. He kept talking, telling me why he was leaving, explaining it was for the best, I could do better, it was his fault and not mine. I had heard it before many times and yet somehow was still not immune1; perhaps one did not be immune to such felony2.
He left and I tried to get on with my life. I filled the kettle and put it on to boil, I took out my old red mug and filled it with coffee watching as each coffee granule3 slipped into the bone china. That was what my life had been like, endless omissions of coffee granules, somehow never managing to make that cup of coffee.
Somehow when the kettle piped its finishing warning I pretended not to hear it. Th