Busy Hours

The first morning after separation. You open your eyes and you let a moan part from your chest. The sheets are damp from a large stain of sweat; the pores on your skin are black, the whole of your body tastes of salt.

 

Shower. Water running down your face. It gathers at the sharp tip of your chin, follows its trail down your neck and your chest, it runs down, down, fills the crevices of your skin, swerving and meandering through every single cleft you never knew existed. You hesitate to stretch your arm and close the tap, not because the water is warm, but because you are thinking of what to do next, trying to remember what actually is next.

 

The kitchen. You taste the coffee, it’s bitter and cold. You rise from the table and you fetch the match box. As you try to open, it falls from your hands and the few remaining matches disperse on the ground. You can do without them, you know you can. You look for the sugar can on the wooden shelf, but it is not there. You look again and again, inside the cupboard, around the sink and you grow certain someone has messed up your things in your absence. You go back to the table and catch sight of the small can, an inch or two from your cup, exactly where you had left it two weeks ago, before you went away. You add your usual two spoonfuls into the coffee, and sit motionless like you were waiting for it to cool, except it is already cold.

 

Voices of laughter outside. The schoolchildren whose voices you missed during two weeks. The voices grow boisterous, and you know that they are there, below your window, breaking through your fence, tearing out the jonquils and the roses. They may not know you are back, but you will not rise and surprise them with their hands full with green turfs from your garden, because you are afraid you will not recognise your own voice when you shout at them.

 

The bus stop. An old man and two ladies are already there before you. You see the two ladies quite often, the old man less frequently. You never knew where he went, because you always leave him behind in the station, sitting quietly on the bench, reading a newspaper, as if he came there only to sit and read that newspaper. This morning, he is wearing a new suit, but he is still sitting and reading his newspaper. The two ladies are already into their daily gossip. You notice the golden thing gleaming in the right ring finger of the youngest, and you notice how often she puts the right hand on her hair. You are not certain whether the golden ring had always been there. The other lady raises a hand to her mouth –to yawn or to hide a smile - The bus arrives.

 

The office. A pile of letters on the desk. The two gentlemen next to you are staring at you in apprehension. You stare back for a few seconds, a silent pledge to be left in peace. You look down at your hands fumbling through the pile of letters, not knowing which one to open first, then your hands stop moving suddenly. This is not your desk.

 

The way home. You get off the bus. You perceive the old man walking ahead slowly, with the newspaper folded carefully under his arm. He is wearing the same suit, but it looks worn and washed out. You realise it is the same old suit he had always been in.

 

Home. A line of ants comes out of a crack in the wall of the hallway and extends to the kitchen. You follow it to see where it ends. They are everywhere, on the floor, gathering on the specks of sugar that fell from the spoon this morning while you were trying to give your coffee taste. They are there on the table, around and all over the cup of coffee. Some have fallen into the cold drink and drowned.

 

Night, bedroom. The bed is undone; the clothes are scattered messily on the carpet. You move forward on the tip of your toes, like you were afraid to wake someone, and you lie on the bed. You hesitate to light the lamp after you get onto the bed; the lamp shade is too far out of reach, and darkness is so irresistible. You feel with your toes deep inside the sheets, and you try not to tell yourself that there’s nothing to be found. You know you will have to start it all over again. You look from the window, and they are there, the hours, black and rumbling like an approaching storm, ready to clench a grip around you; you do not fight back, and like a big ripe fruit, something inside you that has been building up during the day now gets so heavy that it starts to pull you down, down.