Works in progress

Time's Tether (2024)

As I sit here thinking about Mum, the cold feeling creeps up my fingers and toes and grips my whole body. I feel as if I'm about to disappear, my own consciousness flowing out of my body in a wave, sucking the nowness-of-me away. A memory, as clear and vivid as if it was really happening floods into my mind. I'm frozen, watching someone else's life.

We're upstairs in Mum and Dad's bedroom. The room is big and airy, with the evening sunlight coming sideways through the sash windows in the bay. I’m sitting cross-legged on the big bed on the quatrefoil patterned quilt, watching Mum get ready. I'm eight years old. My hair is in pig tails and I'm wearing the soft white pyjamas with little pastel coloured love hearts all over them. Mum is receiving an award at College tonight and has to make a speech, which she keeps rehearsing, although it’s perfect already. She looks like a movie star in her long black dress with her hair in a low bun. A chignon, she called it, from chignon de cou which means nape of the neck in French. Nape: Middle English: of unknown origin. It might come from the word hanap which means goblet in old french, referring to the hollow at the back of the head. I’m not interested in reading the word ‘might’ in a dictionary.