With each two escalator step leap, a new catastrophe dives into my skull

“Someone has stollen the bread”
“You’re getting the sack”
“You’ll never pay off the bailiffs”
“You’ve fucked it all up”
“You fucked it all up, again”

Tap phone, charge up another stairway (“again, again, again”) and I’m outside the space where my stall should be. There’s nothing there. I check my phone. Five minutes early. I think of this sweat as the embarrassment of panic making an Irish exit from my body.

I carry the black coffee to the chair outside with the same delicacy and caution as my own head. Last night was my first Saturday night out of the year and it’s turned my body into an exclamation point. When I was a teenager I played Burnout, a car game that focused on car crashes. If you could hit the oncoming cars in the junction the multiplier would raise and a two minute long series of disaster would dance before you. Each movement I make increases a pile up within me. Sitting is a car crash. Lifting is a car crash. Sipping is a car crash. Thinking is a car crash.

“You’ll never pay-off the Bailiffs” Springs back into my brain, “You’ll never pay-off the bailiffs” one of the shockwaves of thought that got me out of the alien part of south London I woke up in. “Bailiff” “Gareth Bailiff” “ the soup needs a Bailiff” the word itself has stretched itself round my brain tenfold. Every thought stands before the word itself like it’s a bouncer deciding whether or not I’m allowed into a better life. “Can I have a coffee, Bailiff?” “Can I go out tonight… Bailiff” It was only a month ago I realised I was on my second to last payment. Four days ago it was paid off. I’ve spent each day of the week ringing the company to confirm, double confirm, triple confirm, that I’m free from that debt. It’s over, I don’t have to work Sundays anymore. While it uncoils I repeat the sad mantra.

Teddy, the driver, is ten minutes late. Under the time is the text from Siobhan I saw at seven thirty last night, letting me know she’s only five minutes away. I read it imagining she’ll turn up here, in Walthamstow, holding Americanos instead of margaritas and we can keep chatting. The arms of time are stretching themselves between us, but her voice is still in my ear. Her smile is still in my view. The crashes in my body are raging against that. I never wanted to learn another persons name again. I want to know everything about her. She sat beside me basked in the red from the pub garden heating lamp and we closed eyes and the world vanished. Even the Bailiffs. The rumblings of panic and excitement are yet to die down. The excitement from meeting someone I won’t be able to stop thinking about, the panic for the exact same reason.

Under Siobhan’s text are the outgoings for the margaritas. Went round for round like Barrera and Morales. Thank god I’ve them off. The bailiffs. The bai-blade-iffs. MondBailiffs. Tuesdbailiffs. I can’t tell if last night was a celebration of finally being free or an immediate crash. Celebration and self-implosion. Wish I could tell the difference. Honk Honk. It’s Teddy.

“Sean! What time did I get here?”
I go to check my phone for the time
“No, no, what time did I get here?”
I realise what he’s doing.
“Eight” “Nice one”
Teddy drives to the spot.

I open up Siobhan’s text, cracking the seal on the present I still feel nervous seeing her feel nervous when she goes from sitting in front of me to next to me. I still see her draped in the pub garden heat lamp as we kiss. I crack the seal on the present and open the text.