Seven seventeen fourteen degrees overcast

Don’t tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing. I know pre­cisely what I’m doing. I am grabbing the moment, seiz­ing it with both hands, twist­ing and strangling it until it lies limp, cold and unmov­ing in my arms.

These few words are the delib­er­ate, con­scious act of tak­ing an inward breath, whilst I hold myself all still­ness beneath the watery sur­face. This is what I’m about, where I’m at. Very much of very little. Over­whelmed by the oth­er­ness, the other. Except. Except that seconds crawl into minutes, which stretch into hours and last into days and I’m still here, no longer ped­dling but still con­scien­tiously ped­alling. Back­wards, for­wards, any­which­ways. Walk­ing just to stay in one place. Run­ning to stand still. Not just meta­phor­ic­ally either.

So I whis­per my man­tra, hold­ing it like a pill under my tongue for safe­keep­ing, because it will make me bet­ter and erad­ic­ate the sick­ness, the fever. I whis­per my man­tra, hop­ing that the hush can over­power the din of the con­stant of the rush­ing of the cease­less, of the hordes and their con­stancy, dialled up to eleven. I whis­per my man­tra in grasps and clutches and hold hold hold. Yes, I’ve still got this single breath in my lungs. It’s mine, all mine. Not exhaled yet. Not exhaled.

I count these moments all in and I count them all out again. Tot­ting up, tal­ly­ing, cross­ing them off. Chis­elling them in the stone, notches in the wood. And I won­der, because won­der­ing is what I do when the moment allows. I won­der what happened to make me such a per­son who lives for the pre­cious days, lazy days, when we unravel together, listen­ing to the dull roar of the world weav­ing back and forth some five decay­ing floors below.