February Part 1.

February, and the bland fields on either side swamped by winter floods. With every mile traveled southwards the skies grow greyer: dove, slate, charcoal. Through rare breaks in the clouds pale watery light makes it half-hearted escape. Once again on the road. Once again to a city haunted by the freshly dead: drained and discontented. Eight million lonely people living side by side. A city where rush hour blurs past like a recurring dream, a lit window glimpsed from the top deck a thousand times and a room known intimately by the stranger trapped on the treadmill.

All of this still ahead. Three hours down the roman road and yet fear is already leeching away at recently replenished whole. Autophobia: fear of being alone. No light without dark, no good  without bad. No whole without empty. And empty is beginning to feel brutally familiar.