The End of Time

We're in Frankie and Benny's on Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth and sitting opposite me is my wife, Juki.

It's about five o'clock and busy, very busy - we'd just got a table.

I scan around: Families. Lovers. Friends. Children's birthday parties. Staff rushing round with plates and glasses.

I listen to the hubbub: Snatches of conversation. The sound of cutlery upon crockery. The footfall of the waiters and waitresses as they rush past our table.

I pick up a slice of garlic bread, tear a bit off with my teeth and place the remainder on my plate – it tastes good.

I look directly at Juki – her eyes are still a bit red from crying and she has been crying on and off since this morning.

Bill Hayley's: Rock around the Clock strikes up which is kind of ironic because for the last few moments I have been speculating about time when I should have been comforting and reassuring my wife that everything is going to be okay, but life isn't always about 'shoulds'.

Out of the blue, the kaleidoscope of images, the discordant symphony of noise overwhelm me - I surrender to the power of Universe and become both its lens and image, forever at the end of time.

For that brief instance I feel that I am not me but as swiftly I return to the structure of reality, the 'security' yet the notion of forever being on the edge of time, a reluctant passenger on the 'Juggernaut of Becoming' grinding relentlessly forward, at once scares and excites me…

I lean across the table, take Juki's hand in mine and say, “It'll be okay, sometimes it takes time, and it’ll all work out for the best, I'm sure.”

She squeezes my hand and smiles warmly at me for the first time since this morning, this morning when much to her disappointment and anguish, with the arrival of her period, she realised she wasn't pregnant - yet.