Dark descends

And outside, the sky has darkened to the luminosity of night, beyond dusk, the air yellow like electric storms. Leaves are blowing off the trees in an upward trajectory to be scattered in neighbouring roads rather than at the base of the parent tree. The end of the world. An apocalypse. Is North Korea still there? This is Hurricane Ophelia's tentacles- having whipped across the Sahara and picked up sand and dust from Spain finally letting go.

Absence

I've not been here much. Its been a difficult year. An annus horriblis. And it isn't over yet.


There have been fights about technology - falling in to the trap of using the phone for connection all the time, even at inappropriate times, followed by long stretches of no contact at all and the technology being switched off.


There are conspiracy's abounding about the bad affects on health of screens, wifi and spying. I'm reading too many espionage novels - borrowed from the window sill in the kitchen area of the office (people leave books there for others to borrow - a sort of library which reminds me of book-crossing) and find I get paranoid, but I can't bring myself to slog through the other type of fiction that abounds there - stories of women in old times.


There has been death. Lots of it. The Panther's mother the most potent. Our neighbour's mother also. One of our younger friend's young girlfriend. The mother of another friend of mine from my previous workplace. My friend Alex from school - from a virulent cancer. I'm guessing the middle age of life is where this starts to happen. I feel for my father, in his mid-80s with his massive collection of photos of dead friends and family


We passed a 3 year anniversary. The Panther and I. Love is still strong.

Evening commute

Got out of the tube and the air was that weird yellow - dark storm clouds one side and blue sky streaked with airplane streamers the other side.

Then a cyclist drove straight into the back of a bus because he was looking at his phone. Clonk. And the front wheel had been forced inwards on the frame and couldn't be pulled out. He dragged it off.

And then I followed a woman onto the bus who had long black hair with a back-combed fringe that stuck out and had just had her lips collogened - all puffed up and swollen.

And dark fell before I reached home.