Alphabetti spaghetti: C

Lately, I have found myself feel­ing sur­pris­ingly Care­free. I appre­ci­ate that this may come as a shock to many of you, espe­cially those who con­tinue to labour under the fond mis­ap­pre­hen­sion that I forever carry the woes of the world, not to men­tion the argu­ment­at­ive angels and demons of my own pesky con­science, on my shoulders. But it’s true. Oh, the hor­ror. I’m sure that the neigh­bours will talk, if they’re not already doing so.

Fear not, how­ever, for I still remain reas­sur­ingly Care­worn. I have, on occa­sion, been known to try smooth­ing out the creases of vex­a­tion on my brow and the lines of life criss-crossing my palms. Though it makes me look ten years younger, I feel uneasy clam­ber­ing back into the past and try­ing to inhabit the memor­ies of my twenty-six year old skin. Instead, I choose to let the sun, rain and wind do their worst. That way, at least I know that I’m head­ing in the right dir­ec­tion, even if there is a hill to get over first.

I have found myself, too, being excep­tion­ally Care­ful. Mostly between cer­tain hours of the day. Mostly behind closed doors. Mostly under strips of fluor­es­cent light­ing and chequer­boards of ceil­ing tiles. Mostly with piles of paper to the left, used cof­fee cups to the right, and a screen flat­ten­ing my face to the front. I bite my tongue, tread on egg­shells, snd cross my fin­gers until the whistle blows for end of play. Politick­ing is not my game, and I never had the patience for chess.

Inside, behind other closed doors, the release comes from being as Care­less as my heart allows. With words and ideas and hours and minutes. With eyes and ears and more besides. With every sense and no sense at all. Cau­tion makes a delight­ful racket when it smashes onto the con­crete pav­ing stones, some five floors below.

Yes, I could free myself more. Still more and then some. I often wish it, in whis­per­ings aimed at the night sky and the rooftops and the city’s pin­pricked lights. But then I wouldn’t be myself if I wasn’t also entirely Con­tra­dict­ory, would I?