Testing this is a test only

Testing this is a test only.

We sat on the balcony despite the wind; some of her younger friends from work there. The apartment was very small and very sparse; but close to everything; as everyone kindly pointed out. He had been very quiet since the accident. This was the first time he had been out in days. He could see down into the penthouse of one of the neighbouring blocks across the street. The pool table impressed him. A handsome man in white shorts talked on the phone. Another was in the gym. Being close to Oxford Street, he assumed; they had no curtains at all. But then a woman appeared; her hair tied back, athletic, young. He would never look that good ever again.

This is a test only.

It is unfamiliar. It is technology that simply wasn't there in the cicada heat waves of summer; when the beaches were remote and the toxic competitiveness of the city had not cast me in a lesser role. The fall came as a shock to a carefully settled life; settled on a floating board above the lava and the chaos which had seared so many years. It was late and the kids were away and he was cleaning cupboards in the middle of the night; as one does. The old wooden chair, carted through the inner-west for more than a decade, collapsed without warning. He fell backwards on to the bench; lay in agony on the floor for half an hour; projected into a 95-year-old future. No wonder they decided to give up and get out. Although barely able to move, he didn't go the doctor for days. He didn't want any more bad news. Life had settled somewhere below the clouds and somewhere above the lurching mind numbing chaos of his derelict past; and that, he did not want to disturb.

This is a test only.