Just One Girl

The sun shines through the windows of Suite 134, unhindered by the usual heavy drapes. This is because the drapes were never shut last night.

The morning light catches in the raindrops on the window pane, and casts a number of pretty coloured spots over the carpet.

The four occupants of the suite are all dressed, and all out of bed. Unfortunately, none of them are awake, as evidenced by the pile of bodies heaped on the couch. Blue hair rests on orange cotton, and someone else has cashed in a permission slip to use a pair of breasts as a pillow. PlayStation 2 controllers dangle uselessly from the boys' hands, and a betutued Stampy snores contentedly on Indy's lap.

From the first person perspective, the TV screen displays the hands and M1-Garand of a dead British soldier laying across the cobblestones of some anonymous European town, with several pairs of jack boots stalking warily - or perhaps triumphantly - around the corpse. The telegraph-style message on the bottom left of the screen reads: Missing in Action

All is quiet.

Morning. Just like any morning. Well, just like yesterday morning. Which was a particularly wonderful morning, in Mel's opinion.

And wonderful mornings make one want to enjoy the simple things that make them so good.

Hot showers, for instance. When you've been washing under torn pipes for the past month, then really enjoyable long hot showers become one of the best things in the universe.

This morning, Mel showered until the water ran cold, just because she can. The fruity scented steam from that luxury still seeps out of the guest bathroom as she sits on the floor, a towel that might once have been wrapped around her now lying is a neglected heap around her waist and legs. A content Stampy snuggles into her lap as both girls are absolutely transfixed by twentieth century cartoons.