"They were off to Portugal."

Sometimes, things are just a little too familiar to be real; you're a little too well integrated into a scene and that comfort, that feeling of actually belonging, gives everything an edge of fantasy. Any minute, you feel, as you're just attuning to your surroundings, you're going to find out it's a dream or some steady single take in a movie, and you're going to have to return to the discomfort of reality, leave the cinema and have that something's not right loose rattle of everyday uncertainty reminding you of your intrusion.

Sometimes you find yourself laughing at a serious situation because you are entirely convinced it is unreal. There's no way it could be genuine; there's no way it could get this bad. You are joking, right! But not everything these days is intended to be ironic; there are still a few authentic tragedies that occur in life every now and again. At these moments, surely some reaction, a warning circuit in the mental hardwiring, would flag up the gravity of the situation and you'd be able to keep a straight face, you'd have the right response without having to look around at everyone else as they look back aghast at your unrestrained guffaws.

I had laughed when Simon told me that his parents had both been killed in a plane crash. The intensity of his voice, his own slow realisation of what he was saying, and the air of doubt and incomprehension in the pauses in his sentences seemed to be a cue to break into hysterics, obligatory laughter at an improbable state of affairs. Then the loneliness of that laugh, the slow fade out, the sound still in my head, echoing off the walls. Simon's strained expression studies mine. And I drop my eyes to the floor and sink my head into my hands. Suddenly I have forgotten how to pretend, and have to spend a few seconds thinking through the required reaction. I think I forgot for a moment just who I was sitting with. I looked up at the rain against the window and the curtains that were remnants of an unfashionable age. Simon moved towards the sofa and briefly blocked the cold light. I sank back in my chair and thought how solitary this moment was. It stood outside of experience; it seemed to have an existence all of its own that precluded my participation. I knew I had to react, but I knew I would not be able to demonstrate "shock" just yet. I thought disbelief would probably be the safest response, and began preparations to pursue its presentation. The smell of instant coffee reminded me of other places and I clung to the associations while I tapped a cigarette out of the carton. My lighter worked on the tenth attempt. Each empty click had made me more of an intruder.

"They were off to Portugal."

Simon was speaking directly to me. It was surprising; I had been expecting the distant gaze, the memory speaking rather than the person, an objectivity and certain inevitability to the events described. Instead, it was too personal. The silence enveloped us and each time he spoke it was apparent that he had practised his thoughts and sentences. There was reflection, but not obsession. He described events but did not embellish or interpret them with the metaphors of fate. The plane had fallen out of the sky on its final approach. There were no survivors. There had been headlines. He had been interviewed for the satellite bulletins.

There was thunder outside, and people at the bus stop began sprinting as a heavier deluge began. Cars and houses and leafless trees began to blur out of recognition as the raindrops accumulated on the window glass. I tapped my cigarette on the side of the teacup we were using as an ashtray. The smoke curled around my fingers and seemed to balance idly in the air. The unwashed plates and crowded cups on the low table gave the impression of having been abandoned. Soon, they would be covered in mould and the smell of coffee would disappear, replaced by the odour of decay. The light from the window was a washed-out blue. I realised it gave everything a grim unhealthy complexion.

"They were going together."

Simon went back to the window again and rested his hands on the sill, tapping occasionally or moving the spider plant that erupted with new shoots. The rain came in waves, spattering furiously against the glass until it became an unbroken sheet. The sound of traffic wading through the deepening puddles was all I could hear. Occasionally, Simon sighed or cleared his throat. He moved back from the window, limping as he had done ever since the accident. Sometimes he rested himself on a walking stick, but loathed appearing in public with such a perceived affectation or disability. He fell into an armchair and looked at me.

I felt trapped in the moment in time, unwilling to completely acknowledge the reality of the situation, wishing perhaps we could return to the more comfortable level of less intimate acquaintanceship. It seemed that silence could be my only contribution in these circumstances. I could not draw anything but stereotype or clichŽ from the disrupted thoughts in my head. I could not evaluate anything, or recognise an appropriate reaction. I smoked until the filter began to burn.

"I think they realised that all they really needed was a break. From each other. The constant expectation of something better had driven them into a routine of humiliating each other just to feel better about their own failings. And then, I guess, after beginning to realise that the best was behind them, they got scared and ran back to each other. First thing they did, book the holiday. Back into familiarity."

Simon leant back into the padding of the armchair. He was on his own. I was merely watching, a voyeur sitting opposite him, at once intruding on and judging a private moment.