remember what I saw in Millennium Square yesterday and I'm overcome with nerves and uncertainty as the reality of it all hits me again.
There's no point just lying here. Lizzie and the kids are asleep. It's still dark outside but I get up and shuffle through to the living room. I peer out of the window. The car belonging to the people upstairs still hasn't returned. What happened up there? My mind starts to wander and play tricks. Was there a Hater upstairs? It scares me to think that my kids could have been so close to one of them. I force myself to remember Lizzie's words when we were awake earlier. I have to ignore what's going on everywhere else and concentrate on keeping the people on this side of the front door safe.
The flat feels colder than ever this morning and the low temperature makes me feel old beyond my years. I fetch some breakfast and then sit in front of the TV. I watch cartoons. I can't cope with anything more serious. Not yet.
I'm halfway through a bowl of dry cereal and I can't eat any more. I don't have much of an appetite. I feel uneasy all the time and I can't stop thinking about what's happening out there. What the hell is going on? I think about all the unconnected events I've witnessed and the hundreds - probably thousands - of other incidents which have happened elsewhere. No-one can see any connection and yet how can all of these things not be connected? That, I decide, is the most frightening aspect of all. How can so many people from so many different walks of life begin to behave so irrationally and erratically in such a short period of time?
I look over at the clock and realise that I should be getting ready for work now. My stomach starts to turn somersaults when I think about having to phone in and speak to Tina. Christ knows what she's going to say or what I'm going to tell her. Maybe I just won't phone at all.
My curiosity and apprehension gets the better of me. I finally relent and switch on the news. Half of me wants to know what's happening today, the other half wants to go back to bed, put my head under the pillow and not get up again until it's all over. And that causes me to ask myself yet another unanswerable question - how will this end? Will this wave of violence and destruction just fade and die out, or will it keep building and building?
The TV news channel looks different this morning, and for a while I can't put my finger on why. The set is the same and the female presenter is familiar. I don't recognise the man who's sitting next to her. Must be a stand-in. I guess the usual newsreader didn't turn up for work today. Half the staff didn't turn up at my office yesterday. There's no reason why things should be any different for the people on TV, is there? Except, perhaps, the fact that they get paid a hell of a lot more than me for doing a hell of a lot less.
The news is running on a loop again. It seems to be just the headlines on repeat, introduced by these two presenters. There's no sport or entertainment or business news anymore, and the reports I'm watching are all similar to those we've seen before. No explanations, just basic information. Occasionally the cycle is interrupted when one of the newsreaders interviews someone in authority. I've seen politicians, religious leaders and others being interviewed over the last few days. They can all talk the talk and most of them know how to play up to the camera, but none of them can disguise the fact that they seem to know as little about what's happening as the rest of us. And there are other people who I would have expected to see interviewed who have been conspicuous by their absence. What about the Prime Minister and other top-level politicians? Why aren't they showing their faces? Are they too busy trying to personally deal with the crisis (I doubt it) or could it be that they're no longer in office? Could the head of government or the chief of police be Haters?
The male newsreader is talking about schools and businesses remaining closed when a sudden flurry of movement in front of the camera interrupts him. He looks