Sunday

My fingers, extensions of my hand, are shaking. I push them up into the air above my bed. A shadow of useless piano keys or epileptic soldiers is becoming on the wall where a photograph of family in a garden needs more bluetac. The extensions shake so hard, from too much nicotine or sugary treats I don't know, but I go on shaking. My legs are unrooted and heavy imitations of the trees in Richmond Park. Absolute in their dusk stillness. My shoulders and the soles of my feet are also dumb. My fingers, extensions of my hand, are shaking.

In the road outside my home (which is really my parents' home) drunks are remembering the way home on a Sunday night.

I remember a conversastion earlier. Between three strangers who were passing behind our bench:


'Do you have a lighter?'
'Have you got a lighter?'
'Wait - 'Scuse guys, have you got a lighter?'
'It's OK. I've got a lighter!'


The two were enlightened by the one who had the lighter.


My fingers are still typing all over the wall - the light from a laptop, the moonlight. My fingers are angrily gritting and chattering their teeth at me. Now they have teeth and a violence of their own accord. Now my teeth, my teeth are chattering. If I put my hands together, it isn't to pray: it is to stop My fingers, extensions of my hands, are shaking.