I am rushing. I want to get on with work and I need to have my ten minutes sitting first. I am so tense. I have a review to begin and there is always this tension, this fear of that white space. Will it come? Will I make a fool myself, tripping, knicker-less over the page.
There was an A-board outside OXFAM bookshop reading “Welcome Students’ and in the window a selection of paperback cookbooks with titles like Use Your Noodle and How to Boil an Egg.
The same cacophony as I walked. They have not ceased their merriment, though one sounded like a howling beast, or a woman ululating at a New Orleans funeral. I couldn’t work out where they were. The sound echoed around the streets. Eerie.
Our neighbour opened the window as I stepped out. My stomach always sinks. I don’t want to talk, not then. The light clicks on and I know he is there before I open the door. You’re early, he said, you usually go out at three. Does he too want silence, and waits for my leaving? It depends, I said, trying to be warm. But thank you for keeping tabs on me, I said, jocularly. He laughed. Cheers now, and have a nice walk, he said.
I love the detail of my dreams. They have so many layers. At one point I was looking in close at the floor in someone’s home, I like terracotta tiles, she said. Then I was waiting at an airport for a gift that someone had arranged for me. The receipt was in Spanish, and the gift? A tiny bottle of Cherry Brandy. I don’t like Cherry Brandy, he said in my dream. I don’t either, I wanted to say but didn’t, but the thought, the kindness, was lovely to me. It warmed me.
I thought of him through the night. I don’t condone his actions but my compassion for his situation, for his wife and his children overflows. It is a dark world sometimes. I wish him and myself light.
My name means sunshine, she said. But don’t call me sunshine.
I won’t, even if you are.
