this is what it's like to be me

It’s a wall of heat, a wall of pure, solid heat. You could rest babies on it, lean luggage against it, slice it up and serve it with custard. I am cleaned out, bankrupt with exhaustion, and somehow, despite the hot, I have a cold. Colds should have a different name in the summer. Like hots. But then the hots is what you have for someone else, so maybe not. Look, I said I was tired. I go to the cash point to get some money out. Five thousand dirhams I say. Insufficient funds it says. That's odd, I think, I’ve got more than a £100 in my account. I shrug and hit three thousand. The machine whirrs and spits out the notes. I get in the cab and an English number calls me up. I ignore it. Moments later a text chimes in. It's from the credit card people, someone just got out £478.23 on my account it says. I think I may have misunderstood the conversion rate. As I get out of the cab, my subconscious, wanting to do its bit to make a bad day worse, leaves my phone on the seat. It’s an hour before I realise and I spend the next two calling it to no avail. I sit in a Filipino restaurant, far past my bedtime and order water with rice. The water comes but half an hour later there’s no sign of the rice. I’ve lost my appetite, but I chase it up nonetheless. Oh, the guy says, I thought you said water with ice. Another day I’d have laughed and laughed, today I nearly cry. I pour a little salt on the puffy white mound and gulp it down. I crawl back to my apartment, and lie on the bed staring out of the window. The air-conditioners of Dubai sing me to me sleep. When I wake the next day I’m talking to the three opera singers I'm working with (naturally). I tell them how I lost my phone last night, and, as it's my blackberry, I don't have email either. How funny they say, because there was a phone that kept ringing and ringing in this cab they got last night, and it was one of those blackberry things, like you said you lost, and we kept asking who’s it was and it wasn't any of ours and- oh! The penny drops. Calls are made, cars are traced, the phone is found at the airport safely with the chauffeur. Twelve hours later it's back in my hands and I'm definitely crying now, but this time they're the little tears of happiness that come when you know that Someone is looking after you.