Thick and ugly, she’d told him, that was the last thing she’d said in fact before she walked out, slamming the door, never to return. Since that day he’d not been to work, not been to the shops once, ordering all his food in, the vast majority of it take-away. He’d ordered a load of booze in too and managed to get through 48 bottles of strong German lager, two dozen bottles of wine and half a dozen bottles of whiskey; this in only three weeks.

He knew he had to clean up, buck up and get outside, but he just couldn’t. He didn’t see the point until he could persuade her to come back.

He had pissed off all his friends in the first two weeks, constantly crying and talking at them about his lost love. George, his closest and longest serving friend, could probably be won over but he couldn’t be bothered frankly.

Like all the others, he’d become more and more disgruntled over the last 5 and half months of his now non-existent relationship. They said he’d forgotten about his friends; that he needed to slow down a bit and that he was a selfish prick (that was Dave, always a bit extreme) also, unanimously, that he would regret it if he moved in with her after only 2 and a half weeks. He ignored all their advice and complaints and refused to admit even now, that they had been anywhere near correct in their analysis and entreaties.

So now he had no friends, no girlfriend and no job pretty soon unless he managed to get to work next week and catch up with the huge backlog that had accrued and also manage to explain his absence and the stream of insults he’d left on his manager’s phone. He knew too that he was way way past his overdraft limit and was maxed out on all 3 credit cards

So it was a slightly shittier Monday than usual. He dragged himself out of bed because he couldn’t sleep, even though it was only 5.30 in the morning,  and was weighing up, for the tenth time since waking 10 minutes ago, whether or not he should try ringing her again. After all, he hadn’t phoned her at all today and it was at least 12 hours since he left the last message and probably 36 hours since he’d actually spoken to her and been reminded about his thickness and ugliness and also been informed ( something she’d apparently forgotten to mention as she rushed out of the door three weeks ago) that he was pathetically endowed and shit in bed.

He nodded to himself as he came to a decision, standing up and walking towards the phone – she would have had a chance to calm down now wouldn’t she?