The tap water is good, but not great. I pull on a pair of cords, woolly socks, boots. Put my hoodie up and put on a jacket. Out into the cold.
6am.
The sky is dark; the north star is there between the buildings, but not in the north. Definitely not in the north. Not the north star then. A different star, very bright, pointing the way to the supermarket where I am going for water.
6:01.
The bakery is open, bright lights spilling out. All the bakeries are open. There are four on this street, between the park and the hospital. Four bakeries in 200 metres. Odds are good on stumbling into a bakery.
6:02.
People walk past. They don’t walk. They hurry. This isn’t a big city, not a financial district. They are not drones hurrying to get to work. They do not follow the press of the crowd in a snake of people anxiously going into their offices, pushing into their cubicles with anxiety. They are just three or four people hurrying up the street. They are cold.
6:03.
I drop an empty plastic bottle into the recycling bin. They moved the bins here a few months ago. They used to be ten metres down the street. The new location is a little further up the hill, so it’s not right in front of a building. For a while, it was much better, much cleaner. Now, there are clothes and plastic bags and bits of bits all around the base of the bins and it’s exactly the same as it used to be, just further up the street.
6:04.
The fruit and vegetable shop is closed, the white venetian blinds down all the way to the floor, blinding the window. The bakery next door, however, is open. Good odds on bakeries.
6:05.
I cross at the lights. The park is silver and black. There are already people out letting their dogs run around.
6:06.
The supermarket is closed. I stand and stare at the roller door, but it’s not budging. Winter hours. Opens at 7. I sigh, turn around, and walk back the way I came.
The moon has set. The sun is yet to rise.
