Friday 5 September 2008

Living in a tower block.



A woman counts alone in flat 33.

We have exhausted all the usual explanations:
it goes too fast for days, hours, minutes; too slow
to be seconds. It is not time she measures, except
for the lines on her face. We assume that, as none of us
have seen her outside of what we dream at night.

Perhaps she is counting her lucky stars; or her chickens;
she must have many, all hatched. There is no click-click
of an abacus, but what abacus could hold these numbers?
How does her mind remain on track? Maybe she's
the world's swearbox, slowly earning millions while we
speak carelessly on. It has become a comfort now,

slowly humming numbers. We can all detect the change
in tone when she reaches a landmark. It could be
a quest for infinity, or that we have all been allocated
a number in her scheme. We do remember a time
when she wasn't counting. We do not like to think of her
in a version of hell, that she's ticking, unable to stop. We sleep

now but notes of panic are rising. Sometimes in my dreams
I see her counting the end rather than the beginning, forging
her own kind of immortality by denying us ours. Is this all
Death would do? I have my suspicions. I think she is obsessed
but not possessed; that she adds one onto one onto one
and cannot stop. Even her dreams, I'm sure, count for her
when she can sleep. I bet she wakes with a new
beginning, carries on. One onto one onto one.

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