Notes from the Widening Cracks in Deep Summer

I: (three cornered copse at twilight)
Joe down. Up through Three Cornered Copse with him and Andy as night falls. Three Cornered Copse like some slug of a wood, squashed in between houses. Sticky grey darkness. End up at the Downs and watch it get dark from there. Some scrubby field, and in the distance, the last streaks of sunset. Back through the dark grey woods, and by the time we reach Hove park it is full dark. A swaggering bare chested teenager asks us for a cigarette before wandering back to his friends who berate him for approaching strangers to ask for cigarettes. The three of us end up in the Neptune, joined by Ben whom we found walking down George Street. I spend the night at Em's.
II: (first crack)
Shortly before 5:00pm, I am told that I cannot have Saturday off as was originally planned as there is not enough cover. I join Andy and Joe at the beach after work. Wonder up Lovers Walk and London Road to the Prestonville. Al and Claire join us. I leave them early, having to get up for work the next day. I lie on my bed. The night seems to pulse toward dawn, and shortly before dawn, Joe comes back -he went round Al and Claire's place- and crashes, surprisingly quietly into sleep.
III: (grey unpleasant heat)
Meet Joe and Em after work. Wander the hot, sticky and drizzly North Laine. Buy some old comics from a surly man in Dave's Comics. Go to Tiffany's for a coffee, and wait hours in some lightless basement room to be served. Go back to the bedsit and collapse into a heavy implacable sleep for half an hour. Go out that night to watch 'Sarah's Key' at the Duke of Yorks cinema. Not the most cheery of films.
Sleep at Em's.
IV: (a drink with the queen of slaughtering places)
Em works. Meet up with Joe back at the bedsit. Check Facebook. Receive a message from an old flatmate about an old council tax bill -still unpaid from two years ago. Have to meet her to pay it, and feel like I'm getting ripped off, which I probably am. Nine months in that hell-hole, and as I drink my half pint of lager, and listen to her tell me of a cat dying in her arms, I think; she is the dark side of Brighton. I'm sitting with the Queen of Slaughtering Places herself. I really hope I never see or hear from her again. She makes me feel sick and this nausea lasts all day until now, the evening afterwards.
V. (tainted monday)
Not a successful day back at work. I am called to the office because of my terse and angry attitude with customers, a valid point though. I have been in a dark and less than pleasant mood all day, brooding over yesterday and my meeting with the Queen of Slaughtering Places. Back home, the new person who moves in next door hammers things and slams the door making the furniture in my room shake. I have left my phone at work or lost it. I have a sore throat, maybe the beginnings of a cold.