A Night

New Year's Eve. What a strange night; it belongs to other people, not me.
All afternoon, I marked dissertations; after each one I took a break and strolled around the grounds, all seventeen feet of them. There were six to do, and after almost as many hours I had finished.
At the start I felt like a horse refusing jumps on a racecourse; my head went into reverse. 'No, no!', my inner voice screamed. I plodded through them in turn, and actually enjoyed reading some of them; when I finally finished I could sigh with relief. There is more academic work to do, possibly starting very early tomorrow morning if I can drag my lazy bones out of bed.
I almost set the microwave on fire with a mince pie. Smoke billowed out of the machine until I managed to switch it off and retrieve a blackened, sizzling, bubbling, rock-hard thing-on-a-plate that was completely inedible, especially because its aroma floated through the house like a sickly smog.
A potential tragedy in Brighton stopped the evening dead. I had to call the police and after that, spent the night wondering if everything was OK. I don't know if I'll ever find out.