The lines he had, but could not add to in the fog were:

Lady, that soft skin, your bones and mine

Will all be dust before another mountain's razed.

No oceans, not a river, hardly a stream will dry

Before our eyes do, and our hearts.

Metamorpheus:

One

Some things echo more than others. Sometimes I hear the last sound of all, that never echoes because there is nothing to bounce back from; it is the sound of final nothing, and it comes booming through the great pipes that are the bridge's marrow-less bones like a hurricane, like God farting, like every shout of pain collected and replayed. I hear it then; a noise to rupture ears, split skulls, shatter walls, break souls. Those organ pipes are dark tunnels of iron in the sky, enormous and strong; what other sort of tune could they play?

A tune fit for the end of the world, the end of all life, the end of all things.

The rest?

Just hazy images. Patterns of shadow. Screen not silver; dark. Stop the false and flimsy stuff in the gate if you want to see what it's all made of. There. Watch the pretty colours as it, static, moves again; cooking, burning, bubbling and splitting and peeling back darkly like bruised lips parting, the image forced aside by the pressure of that pure white light (see what I'm doing for you laddie?).

No, I'm not him. I'm just watching him. Just a man I met, somebody I used to know.

I think I met him again, later. That comes later. All in good time.

I'm asleep now, but ... well, I'm asleep now. That's enough

No I don't know where I am.

No I don't know who I am.

Yes of course I know it's all a dream.

Isn't everything?

A wind comes and blows the fog away in the early morning. I dress in a daze, trying to remember my dreams. I am not even sure I did dream last night.

In the sky above the river, swollen grey shapes are slowly revealed by the lifting fog; big bloated balloons like immense pneumatic bombs. Barrage balloons, up and down the length of the bridge.

There must be hundreds of them, floating in the air at about summit height, perhaps higher, and anchored either to the islands, or to trawlers and other boats.

The last of the fog lifts and is scattered. It looks like it will be a fine day. The barrage balloons turn together in the sky, looking not so much like birds but a school of great grey whales, slowly moving their bulbous snouts into the atmosphere's soft current. I press my face to the cold glass of the window, looking down the hazy length of the bridge at as acute an angle as possible; the balloons are everywhere, spread out across the sky, some only a hundred feet or so from the bridge, others standing several miles off.

I assume they are to prevent any more fly-pasts by the aircraft; rather an excessive reaction, I'd have thought.

The letterbox flaps; a letter falls to the carpet. It is a note from Abberlaine Arrol; she will be doing some drawing at a certain marshalling yard a few sections away this morning, and would I like to join her?

Today is looking brighter all the time.

I remember to pick up my letter to Dr Joyce. I wrote it last night after disposing of the returned hat. I have told the good doctor that I wish to delay the hypnosis. I ask his indulgence (politely); I assure him I am still more than happy to meet and discuss my dreams - they have been more profound lately, I tell him, and hence probably more useful in the sort of analysis he originally intended to make.

I put Miss Arrol's letter and my own to the good doctor in my pocket, and stand watching the balloons a moment longer. They swing slowly in the morning light, like huge mooring buoys floating on some invisible surface above us.

Somebody knocks at the door. With any luck, it will be a repairman, for the screen or phone or both. I turn the key and try to open the door, but cannot. The knock comes again.

'Yes?' I call, pulling at the handle. A man shouts from outside.

'Come to have a look at your television set; that Mr Orr, is it?

I struggle with the door; the handle turns but nothing happens.

'Is it? Mr J. Orr?' the man shouts.

'Yes, yes it is. Hold on a moment, I can't get the damn door open.'

'Right you are, Mr Orr.'

I tug and haul at the door handle, twisting it, shaking it. It has never even been stiff before now; not a hint of trouble. Perhaps everything in the flat is designed only to operate for about six months. I start to get angry.

'You sure you unlocked it, Mr Orr?'

'Yes,' I say, trying to keep calm.

'Sure it's the right key?'

'Positive!' I shout.

'Just thought I'd ask.' The man sounds amused. 'You got another door, Mr Orr?'

'No. No, I haven't.'

'Tell you what, push the key through the letterbox; I'll try unlocking it from this side.'

He tries this. It does not work. I walk back to the windows for a moment, breathing deeply and looking out at the massed balloons. Then I hear more muffled talking outside the door.

'Telephone engineer here, Mr Orr,' another voice calls. 'Something wrong with your door?'

'He can't open it,' the first voice says.

'Definitely unlocked, is it?' the phone man says. The door is rattled. I say nothing.

'You got another door we can use, Mr Orr?' he shouts.

'I already asked him that,' the first man says. The door is knocked again.

'What?' I say.

'You got a phone, Mr Orr?' The television repairman says.

'Of course he has,' the phone man says indignantly.

'Can you phone Buildings and Corridors, Mr Orr? They'll know wh-'

'How can he do that?' The phone man's voice is high with incredulity. 'I'm here to repair his bloody phone, aren't I?'

I retreat to my study before he suggests I watch some television to pass the time.

It takes another hour. A corridor janitor takes the whole wood surround away from the door. Finally the door just clicks open without warning, leaving him standing, puzzled and suspicious, in the midst of broken wood and dusty plaster. Both the repairmen have left for other jobs. I step out, over wooden slats pierced by bent nails.

'Thank you,' I tell the janitor. He is scratching his head with a claw hammer.

I post the letter to Dr Joyce, then buy some fruit to break my fast. My release has left me just enough time to rendezvous with Miss Arrol.

The tram I take is full of people discussing the barrage balloons; most people have no idea what they are for. Once the tram clears the section proper and enters the relatively uncluttered linking span we all turn to look at them. I am amazed.

They are on one side only. Down-river, more barrage balloons than you could shake a stick at. Up-river; not one. Everybody else on the tram points and goggles at the massed balloons; only I, it seems, stare thunderstuck in the other direction, into the unmarred skies up-river beyond the X-ing girders of the linking span.

Not a single solitary balloon.

'Good morning.'

'It is rather, isn't it? Good morning to you too. How's your head?'

'My head is fine. How is your nose?'

'Same horrible shape, but not bleeding. Oh, your handkerchief.' Abberlaine Arrol digs into a jacket pocket, brings out my handkerchief, fresh and crisp.

Miss Arrol has just arrived here on a railway workers' tram.

We are in a marshalling yard, the widest place on the bridge I've seen so far; some of the sidings extend out far beyond the main structure on broad cantilevered platforms. Great engines, long trains of multifarious carriages, sturdy shunters and flimsy, complicated track-maintenance vehicles clank and shift over and across the complexity of lines and points and sidings like ponderous pieces in some huge, slow game. Steam drifts in the morning light, smoke billows across the harsh points of the still blazing arc lamps high in the girders; uniformed men dash to and fro, shouting and waving different coloured flags, blowing whistles and talking quickly into trackside telephones.