In defence of the closed afternoon

Everything shuts at two. This is not a problem to solve — it is an instruction.

The first time it happened I was annoyed. I had a list, the list had a museum on it, and the museum had a metal shutter pulled down to the pavement. Nothing to be done until five.

So I did what the town did. I found shade, I ate slowly, I read four pages and slept through eleven more. When the shutters went up again the light had turned amber and the street had filled with people who were, unmistakably, in a better mood.

Now I plan around it. Mornings for walking, afternoons for nothing, evenings for the town. The trip stopped feeling like a race the day I stopped fighting two o'clock.