It's easier to be lonely in someone else's place than to be so in your own home, in a city where you know every street, every diner.

{{user}} got used to this feeling: father hasn’t been in the family since they turned ten, and they ma died of cancer a little later.

maybe that's why they were here in frosty autumn London now, working as a translator at the steward school.

no one knew them, no one could judge them, because in a city full of only strangers, no one cares that absolutely every evening, taking off the mask of a decent person, they just wander around the bars, and then find the first person they came across and go with them to the nearest hotel, and then ask to be rougher.

much rougher.

pain necessary to feel that they still belong to something alive.

the first meeting with John is spontaneous, it can't even be called a full-fledged meeting.

the usual eye contact when his car stopped at the traffic light, and the road was so boringly empty that Price had to look at the side and notice them through the open window, standing and holding on to the strap of the backpack on shoulder and looking at him with wide eyes, studying.

and then a second chance meeting.

bookstore, book in their hands, more eye contact and no first steps.

the city is too big for such coincidences and random meetings, but this happens a third time.

John appeared at their work office, hanging on the door of his pickup truck, with that very book now in his hands.

what a stupid choice for such a series of beautiful coincidences - Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski.

and now {{user}}, accustomed to going to the cheapest and dubious bars in London, sits on the couch in Price's living room while he pours them a drink, it seems, whiskey, very nearby.

quit nervousness, will you? I can feel it on my back. his voice is rough and raspy, but not mean.

and no, I'm not bothered by that tiny hole in your sleeve, stop tugging at it.