ground

The suffocating darkness returned. Everything had passed and all that was left was stress, anxiety and fear. The pressure of study and musical creativity was replaced with the daily pressure of office life, and social occupation was replaced by an empty room filled with nothing but books and haunted by memories of  loves long lost. There were breakfast ghosts, dinner ghosts, lover ghosts and those that laughed and puffed clouds of smoke out of the window at the far end of the living room. It was empty and meaningless. In spite of the invites and the utterances of 'we have lots of time', Madrid life was in fact over and the remaining days were dwindling like the flames of an abandoned fire. Two more months would mean that Europe was no longer home and a new life would begin across the Atlantic Ocean. Loneliness and inaction awaited. It was uncertain if this was good or bad because life in Madrid had become a blur of non-reality. America would be a grounding, an opportunity to get one's feet back on the ground.