That Tuesday morning, Samuel Hamilton woke up feeling like he’d spent the night with the Stasi. Before he dared open his eyes, thoughts seized him - uninvited, hostile. Consciousness squeezed just enough to be cruel. Banished from the soft corridors of sleep, he surfaced into a room that already resented him.

His mouth tasted like the underside of a fishing boat - barnacled, oily. A dull hammering began behind his eyes and settled in, ready to see the day through.

He lay sweating into a bare mattress, feeling like something rejected by digestion. Above him the ceiling fan clattered, its dry bearings clicking out a rhythm that did not concern itself with him.

‘Screw the booze,’ he said, though without conviction.

Today was his brother’s wedding. He was the best man. His body had lodged a formal complaint against occupancy. He tried to sit up.

The bed tilted.

Not dramatically - just enough to suggest intent. Gravity felt provisional, as though the laws of physics had been revised overnight. He tried again. The effort was denied.

His limbs tingled faintly.

The wardrobe creaked open.

Something emerged that had not settled on a final shape.

Its outline shimmered; limbs assembled and disassembled without agreement. Its eyes blinked out of sequence.

Samuel slid down to the foot of the bed.

The thing cleared its throat. It wore a traffic warden’s uniform and carried a clipboard.

‘Forty-five minutes until vows,’ it said. ‘Reality is operating at reduced capacity due to events.’

‘I’m dying,’ Samuel said.

‘No,’ the Presence replied, tapping its pen. ‘You’re experiencing internal industrial action. Your liver has had enough.’

‘What events?’

The Presence smiled. Its teeth looked like small gravestones.

Samuel considered asking another question, then decided against it.

‘A helmet has fallen through a castle roof in Italy. A bicycle in County Kerry has achieved partial consciousness. These things ripple. Now move. The bed is no longer your friend.’

The mattress rose, obligingly releasing him. He stepped over a half-eaten Neapolitan cake and lurched toward the bathroom.

The bathroom hummed, white and insectile. The light was already on. Samuel tore back the shower curtain.

His brother Timothy lay in the bath, fully dressed in his wedding suit, eyes open. He wasn’t asleep. He wasn’t awake. He looked like a cardboard cutout.

‘He won’t wake,’ the Presence said, checking a stopwatch. ‘He has achieved perfect stillness. Very popular with grooms.’

‘Help me,’ Samuel said.

‘I am a narrative instrument,’ the Presence replied. ‘Not your skivvy.’

Samuel dragged Timothy from the tub. He was lighter than expected.

Showering felt like torture. The water accused him of things he couldn’t answer.

Steam gathered. He turned his face away.

The towel lacked the conviction of a solid object.

‘Use the polyester one,’ the Presence advised. ‘It’s softer.’

Samuel dressed. The suit fit with the cold, technical accuracy of a tax audit. His tie tightened itself.

The taxi smelled of leather and old breath. The driver’s neck folded in on itself.

Outside, the city stretched. Streets elongated. Brick softened.

The Presence sat in front, now wearing a chauffeur’s hat.

‘We are moving at twelve regrets per hour,’ it said. ‘That is sufficient.’

‘I’m going to be sick.’

‘Sickness is a bourgeois indulgence,’ the Presence said. ‘Endure.’

They passed a Norman ruin that Samuel didn’t remember belonging to the city.

The driver turned. His eyes flickered. ‘Cash or confession?’

Samuel paid.

Timothy fell against him, smelling like street drinker. His body sat folded and incorrect inside the suit.

The church loomed, black stone against grey sky. Its spire pierced upward with administrative certainty. Inside, the sweet rot of the air settled in the lungs.

Guests waited, arranged according to expectation. They stood in rented dignity; their bodies locked into the stiff architecture of their clothes.

The Presence appeared by the holy water font, now dressed in a pinstripe suit.

‘One minute,’ it said. ‘The bride is prepared. Do not improvise. Do not philosophize. Walk.’

Samuel took Timothy’s arm.

‘Is it time?’ Timothy whispered, without looking at him.

‘Just dander,’ Samuel said. ‘You’ll soon find out.’

The aisle narrowed as they advanced. The pews leaned in. The Officiant spoke of order. Of terms. Of what would now be binding.

‘The rings,’ he said, without looking up.

Samuel reached into his pocket. The rings were there. He handed them over.

The words continued.

Samuel stood still. Nothing happened. The vows were spoken.

The Officiant barked the final decree.

‘Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium.’

The contract was sealed.

The Presence nodded once from the shadows and vanished.

As Samuel passed the holy water font on the way out, he noticed a scrap of paper tucked into the stone. The ink was fresh.

‘Whereof one cannot speak,’ it read, ‘thereof one must be silent.’

Outside, daylight seized him. He squinted against a sun that made no allowances. He was sweating. His liver hurt. The contract was sealed.

Timothy was led away by the crow-headed bride, her beak tilted in approval, toward a waiting limousine. The afternoon stretched ahead, already decided.

Samuel didn’t speak.

He began to walk.

‘It’s time for booze,’ he said.

He kept walking.