It’s too wild to go out for my early walk and it throws me. I miss the air, the dark and the solitude, though I am alone here at my desk, it isn’t the same. It’s that battle with the elements and the surviving of it. I am unsettled. My body isn’t right and it has taken its toll on my spirit. It’s been too long. He is unsettled too and watches me. And then there is our neighbour downstairs. We rarely see him these days or indeed hear him smoking and coughing. I did see him briefly the other morning at his window. He was unshaven and unkempt and his voice was so quiet, too quiet. What can one do? He is a proud man, self-contained, and it doesn’t do to pry? (And what would I be doing it for?) Is he in pain? He is clearly fading. And what of his mother, who will care for her? There does seem to be a rather sharp-faced woman going in and out, perhaps they’ve arranged for help. Nothing stays the same. This is the time of dying. Another of his friends and work colleagues from our other life died this week. His ex-head of department had tears in his voice as his told him of it over the phone. I knew him a little. An ambitious man. Ah, this weather. And the winter comes….
