Lumber up, limbo down

Trip down south to see Doug and Gwen and Eirlys. I take an age to get ready, luxuriating in the empty flat. It makes no odds: I look awful. I'm aging like David Hemmings did; quickly and cruelly. There's no more blush on the rose and a lot of little pricks pointing it out to me. I've done a month of not eating, not drinking and exercising every day and actually appear to have gained weight.

I shift my jaw around under the living room lamp. The bulb is low energy and consequently the room is lit like a Michaelangelo. I look for the angle in the mirror, the one that used to make the jowls recede.But I can't find it. I need a cryptanalyst to crack the cipher, or a go on the Turing machine to chase it down. But it eludes me, lost to the ages.