Light

I am at home as I am never at home at this hour: past noon, and still in the flat. Half past twelve, and still here, at the flat. When I lean back in my chair, I see the long cracks running beneath the surface of the paint on the ceiling. I think to myself: you should be in your office, writing. I think: you should be there, at the office, surrounded by books. But I am here, at home – is this home? – in the flat.

The light bulb from the ceiling, without lapshade. The brown exposed floorboards; brown louvre doors. What would it take to lighten the flat? How can light be brought here, to this flat, this pit, half-buried in concrete? How I can bring light to my life, to its hollowness? How to ignite an inner sun? But I know that there is nothing inside, or rather, that the space that has hollowed out itself can be rejoined to the blazing surface of the outside. Is there a way to turn the flat, likewise, inside out? A way to spread it across the surface upon which light is always falling?

One day we will have no secrets. One day we will be opened, each of us, and there will be no more secrets.