(i am not free)

The day crawls by. Battered by endless calls at work, one after another after another, and it was like a thousand days rolled into one, an afternoon the length of a millenium, the morning like a rainy Sunday when you're twelve years old and your friends live in another town.
This is a dark autumn.
At lunchtime on a corner, a back alley, talking on the phone, backs of buildings, backs of shops, a car park, and the air is white and empty and not cold and not warm, and I see the geography of the present stretching on interminably.
Back home now.
My week off from work has started. I can't remember the last time I was least looking forward to time off work.
And work this week has been a nightmare.