I have a friend, Sophie, who is a student at Leeds University. On visiting her during her first year there, I found that the ladies of her flat had a collection of "interesting" things on their lavatory door - there were recipes for roast hedgehog, quotes about flat members and other such oddities.

Being the kind, generous soul that I am, I offered to write a short story for the toilet door, although the limited space available restricted me to something that, when printed, would take up a maximum of two pages. This was the result.

He thought about his life so far. Or at least he tried to. His mental processes always froze at the same point, as though nothing before then had even existed. He knew his own history - and even a little of other people's - but prior to the day he met her, the memories were just vague illusions rather than the tangible, almost sensual images that followed.

He pulled the purple waistcoat over his head, treating it more like a jumper than a buttonable garment, before smoothing it into place over his white T-shirt.

It was also strange, he thought, how the granularity of time seems to alter. He remembered the instant that she left him, how time ticked by in fractions of a second as he prayed that she would change her mind. As the seconds became minutes he was sure that a little reflection would bring her back. Hours, days and weeks all passed, with nothing he could do or say swaying her from the decision she had made.

It seems that the brain, probably self-defensively, changes timescales in order to keep the measurements as low as possible. When a count of weeks became exasperatingly obvious, he changed to months, with the accompanying drop from dozens to just a few.

The granularity now was in fuzzy half years. Just over two and a half of them in fact. In all that time, the closest he had come to female company was a quick peck by a peer pressured reveller on New Year's Eve. If even a bodyful of alcohol stopped at a friendly kiss that barely hit his lips, what chance did he have with anyone whose sobriety was intact.

He pulled his boots on, slid the coat over his arms, and stepped out into the chill night air. He stopped a bus, and made his way to the cinema.

After two and a half years you might think that the stigma of travelling to a concert or film alone would be lessened, yet he felt people's eyes tunnelling into his flesh as harshly as ever. Usually he roped his friends in, but that wasn't always possible. Tonight was such a night: a rare chance to see a classic film on the big screen, but nobody to see it with. Self-consciously he'd decided to go.

It was before the film started that he saw her. Two rows forward, a couple of seats to his right, and angled to talk to her friend. He could see every pore of her flawless skin. He could almost smell the brightness of her hair as it tumbled over her shoulders. For a moment, he though he could feel the rough texture of her tongue rasping passionately against his own. Then the house lights dimmed.

He never saw the film. He watched it, yes. The flickering frames of celluloid certainly coloured the light which hit his eyes. But he never saw it. In the dim light of the cinema all he saw was her. He saw the way that she fiddled with her earring. He saw the way she laughed. He saw the way she cried.

What's the worst she can say? 'No'? 'Fuck off'? Nothing worse than that. For months now he'd been looking at women as he passed them in the street, wondering if one of them was the perfect match for him, but never daring to speak. Tonight, he decided, that would change. The worst she could say was 'No.' Tonight he would be more proactive. It was no use waiting forever in the vain hope that true love would stumble in his direction. He had to take a chance. The worst she could say was 'No.'

The worst she could say was 'No.'

The next instant, he found himself staring at a scrolling list of credits, woken from his stupor by the strobing flash of people filtering past. He grabbed his coat and stood up, but she was already gone.

He clambered over seats, leapt down two or three steps at a time, and pushed and shoved his way through the bustling crowd until he burst out onto the pavement outside. He threw his head this way and that, but couldn't see her. He turned to face the oncoming stampede as hordes of people spilled out of the cinema doors. There was still no sign of her.

A few steps forward took him to the edge of the road, and widened his field of view considerably. Again he looked around, but this time he saw her, one of a pair of figures walking along the pavement to his left. He dashed after her.

The air hit the back of his throat with painful urgency. Each breath was like swallowing icicles. What would he say to her? It was a question he'd pondered many times over the past two and a half years, but now, when he most needed an answer, none came. He remembered a magazine article that suggested an open, honest approach, rather than a clever and witty chat up line (which he doubted he could pull off, anyway). Besides, the worst she could say was 'No.'

At last he reached her, and she span round with the sound of his decelerating footsteps. In the basking orange glow of the streetlights, he saw a whole new set of contours; another selection of shadows. Even in this light she was beautiful.

'Erm... I know this may sound a little strange,' he stammered, 'given that we've never met... but I don't suppose you'd fancy going for a coffee sometime, would you?'

There! He'd said it! His new, proactive self was born. Even if she said 'No,' he was now free to ask any number of other people, until the answer was 'Yes.' After all this time, he'd made a break from the past. His whole future lay ahead of him, and the worst anyone could say was 'No.'

She looked him over. His long hair. His glasses, which he so desperately wanted to replace, but which he couldn't afford to. His beard and moustache, meticulously cultivated as an outward sign of his sense of humour, but mistakenly interpreted as a disastrous sense of fashion. His long coat, jeans and excessively pointy boots.

She chuckled to herself, grinned at her friend, and then spoke: 'I don't think so.'

They turned, and began walking towards the bus stop further along the road. Every few yards he could hear his words being launched into the ether as part of some hilarious joke which had them collapsing onto each other in fits of laughter. 'No,' apparently, was not the worst thing she could say.

'I don't think so.' He rolled the words around his mouth, and spat them at anyone who passed by. 'I don't think so. I don't think so. I DON'T THINK SO!'

He turned to see a green and white contraption of plastic and metal thundering towards the bus stop. 'I don't think so. I don't think...'

'...don't think...'

'Don't think.'

'DON'T THINK!'

He stopped the bus. And it stopped him.