Three o'clock, with a glass

Seven o'clock, a coffee, and a glass of water next to it, drunk while the kettle cools. Ten o'clock, someone's going to the machine, and you say coffee and a water, and they bring both because it's normal now. Lunch at the desk, and there's a glass on it because there's always a glass on it. Half past two, the heaviness, and you feel the reach, and you drink the glass that's there and give it ten minutes. Three o'clock arrives and it's just three o'clock. You notice at four that there wasn't a headache, and that the tin is still closed, and you go to the loo and it's pale.

That's the whole book in a day. Nothing in it needed wanting water, hearing thirst, or giving anything up. The coffee is still there. The lift, if you want it, is still there. What's gone is the dry stretch between eleven and six that was making the afternoon heavier and the evening later than they had to be.

One action, before you put this down. Get a glass, fill it, and put it where you make your hot drinks. Leave it there. The next cup you make, fill it. That's the pair started, and everything else follows from a glass that's already in the right place.