Elephant Salt
It
was a flurry of noise that startled me awake, above the covers, daylight, up in
bed, trying to make sense through my grogginess. What was that noise and
another? What did that movement mean? How near was it? Saturday morning, I was
certain, and I realised, after a moment had passed, I was not in danger.
A young man stopped, turned and picked up the litter that had accidentally fallen from his pocket; someone on the tube gave up their seat for a young mother, another stranger for the partner; the small acts of consideration on a Thursday when I am alive that stick in my mind.
The curtain bellowed, bulged. The curtains are yellow-gold-mustard, I cannot describe their colour, but at that moment they were in motion, out and then in, parachuting off dawn’s breeze that came through the latch. There were impacts against the window, solid doubleglazing, a soft force, almost cushioned. The impacts were agitated and without rhythm. The impacts were frantic.
My blue fern is hanging on by a thread. A crown of fragile leaves, no more than six, impart their pale colours outwards into my living room and one of them is not so spread as the others. For days I regard it worryingly. I hold it in my fingers, delicately. I wait by its bedside, watch it sleep, pray to the icon, I go through its charts with the doctor, I open the curtains every morning and pat it with a cold damp towel. The leaf dies, dries and dies. Then, out of nowhere, a new leaf grows. My blue fern balances perilously between life and death, always, and I exist around it distant from either.
Ah, I know that sound…! It was a drone, low and angry, aroused even. As it started to smooth so it was again disturbed. A bumblebee! No sooner had it caught its midair balance and righted it course did it stutter and stop, then resume in anger. The pitch adjusted slightly. One could determine that the bumblebee itself was rising behind the curtain, and as it did, the curtain bellowed out.
‘Now these short five hours spent together feel so far away, ça n’est pas à moi que tu penses, but an idea of me, an almost flawless version that would evaporate in an instant if we met again and you would be left wondering - why did I think of you so much? Peut-être que c’est pour cela que tu n’essayes pas de me voir.’
Where there is a bumblebee in my flat, the cat is not far behind.
‘T— Council are now offering us the collection of certain textiles so if you have any you need to recycle just give them to me. xx’ She had taken a photograph of the leaflet hrough the letterbox. ‘Items that can be collected in the blue bags include: Clothes, curtains, shoes, handbags, belts, hats, bedding, towels. Must be clean and resusable.’
She was tremendously excited by the insect’s intrusion. If I know the cat and her routine—and I would say that I do—then she would have been sunning herself on her hammock in the living room when she heard that drone of the lost bumblebee enter her flat.
A young man stopped, turned and picked up the litter that had accidentally fallen from his pocket; someone on the tube gave up their seat for a young mother, another stranger for the partner; the small acts of consideration on a Thursday when I am alive that stick in my mind.
The curtain bellowed, bulged. The curtains are yellow-gold-mustard, I cannot describe their colour, but at that moment they were in motion, out and then in, parachuting off dawn’s breeze that came through the latch. There were impacts against the window, solid doubleglazing, a soft force, almost cushioned. The impacts were agitated and without rhythm. The impacts were frantic.
My blue fern is hanging on by a thread. A crown of fragile leaves, no more than six, impart their pale colours outwards into my living room and one of them is not so spread as the others. For days I regard it worryingly. I hold it in my fingers, delicately. I wait by its bedside, watch it sleep, pray to the icon, I go through its charts with the doctor, I open the curtains every morning and pat it with a cold damp towel. The leaf dies, dries and dies. Then, out of nowhere, a new leaf grows. My blue fern balances perilously between life and death, always, and I exist around it distant from either.
Ah, I know that sound…! It was a drone, low and angry, aroused even. As it started to smooth so it was again disturbed. A bumblebee! No sooner had it caught its midair balance and righted it course did it stutter and stop, then resume in anger. The pitch adjusted slightly. One could determine that the bumblebee itself was rising behind the curtain, and as it did, the curtain bellowed out.
‘Now these short five hours spent together feel so far away, ça n’est pas à moi que tu penses, but an idea of me, an almost flawless version that would evaporate in an instant if we met again and you would be left wondering - why did I think of you so much? Peut-être que c’est pour cela que tu n’essayes pas de me voir.’
Where there is a bumblebee in my flat, the cat is not far behind.
‘T— Council are now offering us the collection of certain textiles so if you have any you need to recycle just give them to me. xx’ She had taken a photograph of the leaflet hrough the letterbox. ‘Items that can be collected in the blue bags include: Clothes, curtains, shoes, handbags, belts, hats, bedding, towels. Must be clean and resusable.’
She was tremendously excited by the insect’s intrusion. If I know the cat and her routine—and I would say that I do—then she would have been sunning herself on her hammock in the living room when she heard that drone of the lost bumblebee enter her flat.
My
heavy winter coat had been on the rack for months and on my back for years. As
I bagged it for my mother’s recycling advertisement, there was one memory upon
its shoulder that could not be shook. I was falling in love with a Finnish woman
and we were putting the coat through its paces on the shores of Estonia, when I
slipped upon a sheet on ice and she picked me up and I was not embarrassed.
Because it has been a cold year, their numbers are down, bees and wasps, so I leapt out of bed and grabbed the cat under her arms as she jumped and pounced and clawed and ekk’d and her pupils all dilated and mouth open. She was unhappy that I had interrupted her, and she spread her toes to convey her frustration as I carried her dangling frame to the living room.
After dinner was eaten and everything had been cleared away, I lay on the sofa in my underwear. All of me was showersoft and probably quite fragrant, although I could not have known because, as I read the book mere inches from my face, all I could smell was the garlic on my fingertips, which I brought closer & closer to my nose until the smell of garlic overcame me and I was drunk with it.
All the receptacles in my cupboards are arranged by material—glass and porcelain—and then function—wine (red and then white), everyday, fruit juice—and then size.
I do not know the idiosyncrasies of my moods, its secret gardens or passwords, its allergies or its hidden vaults, but if I did then I would be a wise man. What could turn it from miserable to joyous, from calm to distraught in a moment? And if I knew, would my life be any more meaningless?
I took one of the glasses I use for fruit juice and a letter from the taxman and went back into my bedroom. One could assume from its stuttering drone that the bumblebee was not very adept at flying between a window and a curtain. It fell. It was exhausted. Lying there on the windowsill, it pulsed and sparkled in the morning sun.
She got off at Waterloo. If I could just kneel down on the platform there and put my tongue between her enormous buttocks and lick all of her August-sixth perspiration from fold to pucker to blade to nape, like one of those elephants in the Congo that digs into mud for the precious salt it craves.
Within the glass, the bumblebee surrendered to its confines. Outside of the bedroom, I could hear the cat meowing, going at the door. I balanced the letter from the taxman on top of the glass and opened the window. A slight flush of cool morning air perfumed in. The bumblebee smelled it too. As soon as I removed the letter from the taxman, the bumblebee upped and flew away without looking back. The seven-sixteen dawn was big and welcomed the bumblebee, swallowing its drone whole.
‘Quite often think of your laugh when watching peep show.’
I let the cat back in and apologised to her, explained that the bees needed protecting and that I did not want her getting stung like last time. I assured her that I only ever had her best interests at heart. Back in bed, above the covers, she settled in the nook of my arm and we lay there for a while. Sleep would not return. She made biscuits. The day came in fiercer through my eastern windows. The air was close and unmoving, it was almost claustrophobic, it was sweet with the smell of August.
Because it has been a cold year, their numbers are down, bees and wasps, so I leapt out of bed and grabbed the cat under her arms as she jumped and pounced and clawed and ekk’d and her pupils all dilated and mouth open. She was unhappy that I had interrupted her, and she spread her toes to convey her frustration as I carried her dangling frame to the living room.
After dinner was eaten and everything had been cleared away, I lay on the sofa in my underwear. All of me was showersoft and probably quite fragrant, although I could not have known because, as I read the book mere inches from my face, all I could smell was the garlic on my fingertips, which I brought closer & closer to my nose until the smell of garlic overcame me and I was drunk with it.
All the receptacles in my cupboards are arranged by material—glass and porcelain—and then function—wine (red and then white), everyday, fruit juice—and then size.
I do not know the idiosyncrasies of my moods, its secret gardens or passwords, its allergies or its hidden vaults, but if I did then I would be a wise man. What could turn it from miserable to joyous, from calm to distraught in a moment? And if I knew, would my life be any more meaningless?
I took one of the glasses I use for fruit juice and a letter from the taxman and went back into my bedroom. One could assume from its stuttering drone that the bumblebee was not very adept at flying between a window and a curtain. It fell. It was exhausted. Lying there on the windowsill, it pulsed and sparkled in the morning sun.
She got off at Waterloo. If I could just kneel down on the platform there and put my tongue between her enormous buttocks and lick all of her August-sixth perspiration from fold to pucker to blade to nape, like one of those elephants in the Congo that digs into mud for the precious salt it craves.
Within the glass, the bumblebee surrendered to its confines. Outside of the bedroom, I could hear the cat meowing, going at the door. I balanced the letter from the taxman on top of the glass and opened the window. A slight flush of cool morning air perfumed in. The bumblebee smelled it too. As soon as I removed the letter from the taxman, the bumblebee upped and flew away without looking back. The seven-sixteen dawn was big and welcomed the bumblebee, swallowing its drone whole.
‘Quite often think of your laugh when watching peep show.’
I let the cat back in and apologised to her, explained that the bees needed protecting and that I did not want her getting stung like last time. I assured her that I only ever had her best interests at heart. Back in bed, above the covers, she settled in the nook of my arm and we lay there for a while. Sleep would not return. She made biscuits. The day came in fiercer through my eastern windows. The air was close and unmoving, it was almost claustrophobic, it was sweet with the smell of August.
