The heat was languid and unassuming. The distant thrum of flies congregating in the corner of each room told her that summer had arrived. Driving earlier in her small car two aluminium tables that she had neatly stacked together clanged indiscriminately at each turn in the road. The noise was not unpleasant but its appearance that day in her car presented an uncertain foreboding that dogged her. The trees at her window became silhouetted against the disappearing sky. Clouds spread out like tangled shoelaces. She wanted to cry.

They didn't understand what she meant by those little wrinkles in reality. Open windows made her uneasy. She preferred hot stuffy rooms closed to the world.