Writing Unknown

I’m tired, R.M. is tired. Why write in order to say: I am tired. For the gift of ringing changes on that tiredness. For that strange achievement which is words on the screen. As if to say: there is a part of you which is not entirely tired. Strange triumph. Why some people write and others do not: some need that peculiar alienation by which they need words to stand outside them. Not to express themselves – nor is there the desire to make a temple out of suffering, to draw a literary edifice into the air. But to leave a monument, a kind of tomb in which no one in particular lies.

Unknown. Walk home from work across the field. Hope the flat next door will be quiet. Pass the cows who sleep standing up. Along the row of houses until you can see you own. No flashing alarm, no burglary. There it is: the place to which you come in the hope, almost as soon as you are assured of its existence, to leave by another route.