17.

The newest arrival comes from Wellington.

He had a nice job in the government until one day he went to a meeting too early. He thought it was at three, not three-thirty. It wasn't worth going back to his building; he was offered tea and a place to sit.

People bustled passed with brightly coloured folders. Some of them would be in the meeting, but they did not recognise him. Or did they? Embarrassment arrived like applause, sputtering and formless then immense and deafening.

At the meeting, he could hear nothing, say nothing.

He's in Marumaru South now. Starting over.