A Sad State of Affairs
It is three o’clock in the afternoon and she has kept the same position since breakfast, writing in her journal, nursing each fresh drink, drawing it out so that her budget (small) will see her through until she is forced to give up her seat. She is in no hurry to leave, having nowhere else to go, no pressing appointment – except with home, and the house is depressingly quiet and yet still too full, inhabited by a long line of hours waiting impatiently to be filled, the space between now and then too vast...
Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty. And, if she was honest, she still didn't. It wasn't her mind that had changed. It wasn't even thhe mind of the world in general. Just the rather pleasant opinion of one particular man who she had met while walking into town. He had caught her eye as she passed, caught her hard and fast in fact. She was forced to an abrupt halt, staggered by it's impact. Not unpleasant, mind. Gentle, but admiring. There was power in that. He had looked and smiled and then complimented her on her looks,...
Write as you please, in six minutes, like a breeze.
They make it sound so easy, like it is as easy as taking a bath or brushing your hair. Omitting the fact that it is actually quite challenging, a formidable task, failing to mention the fire details.
Then again, I guess, to an elderly person or someone who is physically impaired, bathing and brushing might be considered challenging too.
So I am sitting here, in this large, airy room, surrounded by other nervous candidates, trying to recall everything that I have learned over the past six moths, endeavouring to capture...
"Even in a finite universe, a rock doesn't keep being a rock. Things are always disintegrating and becoming other things." Our Tragic Universe, Scarlett Thomas
There was once a rock, a very old rock, a rock which had laid low for a very long time. It couldn't remember how long that long time actually was but somehow knew without needing to remember that that long time was long enough. It was a rock that took great pride in its appearance, habitually watering its neat lawn of grass, combing its thick coat of moss, trimming it at least once a week....
Travel light, but take everything with you. Everything that you might need. The bare essentials. Nothing that might be termed as excess. Nothing that might weigh you down, nothing that might, at the other end, end up in a cupboard or a loft, forever after forgotten and stored away.
That's the problem with belongings. You accumulate so many unnecessary things over the years, things that once meant something to you, perhaps even a lot, but that, over an indeterminate period of time, lost that once owned meaning and became, instead worthless, meaningless. The Valentine's Day card from an old lover,...