Rooms

‘All I do is wander from room to room’ (Graham Greene in old age, from his correspondence). The evening, every evening. From room to room, lying down in there, on the other side of the bevelled glass. Reading a little. Picking a book up and putting it down. And then, leaning over the side of the bed, smoothing the wooden floor with my hand. Dust. Stray hairs.

I wander from room to room. To this room, here, by the computer, the red blind rolled down. What was it I wanted to write? What was it I wanted to say? It’s winter. It’s winter again. Last year, at this time, in this room, what was I writing? And the year before? All the years are here; all the years are present tonight.

A room falling through time. A room – this one, one of a series. There was a room before this one, and another before that. And there is the series of rooms that is this one; a room falling. A room falling through time. I will have been here before. I have not been here yet. How to inhabit this space, to live where I cannot live?