John experienced a strange bifurcating sensation as he left the cliff edge: a real existential moment or, as his mother would have put it, a funny turn. Far below, seething tongues of foam lapped through the ruined vehicle, sucking it inexorably out to sea, and John felt as though part of himself was being drawn with it, while the remainder walked slowly away.

~

He lodged in a roadside hotel – anonymous, sterile, like an artist’s impression slavishly translated in full scale, complete with fake greenery and smooth-featured, androgynous staff. They’d made an effort with the bar, though, building a peculiar parody of a village pub, no doubt as an output of costly focus-grouping – all dark wood, dimple mugs and hand-pumps, beyond which concrete walls soared and fluorescent light flickered. The whole effect was schizophrenic.

John ordered a gin and tonic, squinting into the mirrored backdrop and seeing, with unaccountable surprise, his own reflection staring back, behind the rows of blue and green bottles.