#NaBloPoMo 18 – Afterwards
After they left, the house went very quiet. No one really knew about the quietness but me. I played a Nick Drake CD and lost an afternoon crying. I went for a walk by the river but all I saw was white light and salt pricking my eyes.
I watched apples thump onto the lawn, the wasps dancing in and out of their bruises. I kept trying to play the Nick Drake CD, and kept trying to walk by the river.
There were no visitors.
Not because they had stopped caring but because I think for them it was over. But it was not over for me and still is not over, even though I live and breathe, and hold down a job and queue each day for bread and eggs.
This is what it is like, day in, day out: I can go for months and not notice it. Or I can spend days thinking about nothing else while doing normal things like teaching, cooking, sleeping and walking.
I can go for months and not notice it.
I can go for months without noticing me.
These posts don’t so much touch a nerve with me as jump up and down on it. You are a beautiful man and a beautiful writer. I know you don’t write in order to attract public devotion, but you can have mind. The eldest has gone away from our house and the silence is a challenge. The departure of the other three suddenly looms like a threat. And I’ve lost my Nick Drake CD.
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Oh, Cole, this means so much coming from you. Thank you. I think I write for about five people whose views matter to me. You know who you are.
Bless you as you roam the nest in search of Nick xx Ant
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Although you’re ostensibly writing about cancer, I feel you’re also writing about existential loneliness and our separateness as humans from each other, also about the strange nature of the mind and what it chooses to take hold of and then, just as easily, dismiss for weeks on end. Really resonated with me! Thanks.
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Thank you so much Mandy. The more I read your comment the more I think you are right. I’m so pleased it resonated with you. Sending you my very best wishes as ever, Anthony
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