Seven hours before she decided to die, Nora was in free fall and she had no one to talk to.

Her last hope was her former best friend Izzy, who was over ten thousand miles away in Australia. And things had dried up between them too.

She took out her phone and sent Izzy a message.

Hi Izzy, long time no chat. Miss you, friend. Would be WONDROUS to catch up. X

She added another ‘X’ and sent it.

Within a minute, Izzy had seen the message. Nora waited in vain for three dots to appear.

She passed the cinema, where a new Ryan Bailey film was playing tonight.

A corny cowboy-romcom called Last Chance Saloon.

Ryan Bailey’s face seemed to always know deep and significant things. Nora had loved him ever since she’d watched him play a brooding Plato in

e Athenians on TV, and since he’d said in an interview that he’d studied philosophy. She’d imagined them having deep conversations about Henry David oreau through a veil of steam in his West Hollywood hot tub.

‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams,’ oreau had said. ‘Live the life you’ve imagined.’

oreau had been her favourite philosopher to study. But who seriously goes confidently in the direction of their dreams? Well, apart from oreau. He’d gone and lived in the woods, with no contact from the outside world, to just sit there and write and chop wood and fish. But life was probably simpler two centuries ago in Concord, Massachusetts, than modern life in Bedford, Bedfordshire.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

Maybe she was just really crap at it. At life.

Whole hours passed by. She wanted to have a purpose, something to give her a reason to exist. But she had nothing. Not even the small purpose of picking up Mr Banerjee’s medication, as she had done that two days ago. She tried to give a homeless man some money but realised she had no money.

‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen,’ someone said.

Nothing ever did, she thought to herself. at was the whole problem.