The letter was in the box. The letter was in the envelope. The letter was out of my hands. I retracted my fingers from where they stood in regard to each other. I pushed those prolific papers into the first of a chain of events that would escort them across the right-hand side of this country and it's adjacent sea. I sent words in my tongue to a tongue that I longed. I began the day's second retraction; that of my legs back down the post-box's prolific street.
I walked along the very edge of the pavement in the hope that the necessary attention to balance might give me something to think about. I remembered, for a second, last night's dream but by the next footfall it had vanished again.
10:58. There was nothing to be done. A world on every side of me and nothing to be done. Time didn't always elapse in this way. The day was surely nearly over and yet it had scarcely begun.
The dream again. More this time; a shop, a walk home (to my childhood home), walking home from school perhaps but as an adult (or thereabouts) and in the dark, a bicycle but slowly slowly, some sweets, an event approaching, people I recognised one after another but out of context out of chronology, small greetings, mostly cheerful, something to be afraid of, dusk definitely dusk. And gone. That's all.
10:59. So much has passed and only 10:59! This city was too small. I had seen every brick. I was familiar with certain cracks in the pavements. Still, at least I could cling to a sense of ownership, at least running my fingers across railings felt a little like something like home. I felt something like attachment to the litter crowding around bus-stops, to the missing letters of shop-front signs, to the roads in need of resurfacing. I avoided the lumps and bumps by instinct now. On the road. And in my life.
I counted the steps. I walked straight. Good posture. Fine. It's fine. The world is a fine place. This is a fine city. It is 11:02. I have posted a letter to which there will be no reply. There is to be no further correspondence. Or there will be a fairytale in a week or a year or more and I will die in warm arms by the sand.
I have seen the waves heading towards the edge of that beach and seen how, in the correct angle of light, it (the beach) gladly sparkles. I have watched how easily things fit together in a kaleidoscope of imagined futures. It doesn't stop. I don't stop imagining one because I chose another. I am still the active ingredient, even if the bread isn't rising. Even if my heart is sinking. Even if I am sinking into imaginary sand.
Three more steps. Five. I should have put on my yellow tights today. I am stifled in these clothes. In this city. In this hour that stretches out before me like a yard of dirt like bags of sand.
I will return to my room and change my clothes and start again. I will turn left before the post box and buy eggs from somewhere. Eggs are why I left the house this morning. Will it still be morning? It will always be morning. I am sure this day will never end.
And once I have bought the eggs? Will I make an omelette? Eat it? Wash the plate, the pan? Then what? Tea? A cup, a bag, a spoon, some sugar? I'll drink it slowly. Savour it. For want of a better way to savour time. And still, there will be a whole afternoon stretching before me, a lazy sun carousing gigantic sky. I will become restless, start thinking, find a pen, some paper....
I'll write a letter.
I can post it tomorrow, in the morning, when I wake up dress myself, when I put on coat or hat and otherwise accessorise; it will be better if I am dressed properly, if I give myself a function, if I utilise this or that part of my body, if I concentrate, if I tip my hat, zip my coat, flex my arms and stretch my gloves, flatten out my skirt, brush my teeth. I'll take myself to the post box and slip that letter right in. I'll send it on it's way with a merry smile and blow a kiss to the reciprocant's country as it flies out of my arms and into my dreams.
Into the past I am making. Away.
I'll return tomorrow to change my tights and stare at the clock and do the same again.
March 2009.
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