February 3

‘Not even the newspapers. They delivered them in the, er… ‘

The old man hesitates, trying to select from a stock of well meant clichés. ‘Old times, you know?’

‘Hmmmm,’ said the middle-aged Post Office worker with a curly perm and ear-rings as chunky as the lumps of blackened snow outside.

‘Yesterday, it all stopped. Never before. I remember it happening and it never stopped.’

‘Hmmmm.’

The old man pauses. His head nods like a sea-sick rocking horse. ‘Different times, suppose. Not the same.’

‘Hmmmm.’

‘Not much we can do.’

‘Nnnhhhhm.’

‘All the best to you, then.’

‘Bye.’

The old man walks away from the counter. As he walks his whole body nods, towards falling over and back again, towards falling over and back again; towards the past and back again.