clinging to the wreckage

  Friday morning is sadly clouded by nausea. Hoping that fresh air will revive the spirits and the body, I take a walk to feed the ducks. There are some large ones that live permanently at the lake, they are loved by the community. I laughed out loud as one of them ran towards me when I held out my hand. The way a duck runs is very unique.                         Walking back, I felt a sense of pleasure at the thought of solitude. An empty apartment in which I can simply sit back and do nothing… or listen to music, read a book, watch a film, sing, dance, sleep… all in the blissful silence of solitude. I did my banking and some investing. Keeping a budget file, I calculate my finances precisely and invest immediately when I get paid. This has been life changing. After this, I call my dad and help him with his banking.                ...

  Sleep is a distant daydream… only a daydream because I don’t sleep enough to dream of it. It’s 03:38am and the temperature is 29 degrees C (84F). The cat is hiding; I just walked out onto the roof to see if I could see her. However, there is a beautiful full moon and the Dallas skyline in the distance is showing off an array of colours. I have a meeting at 6am, which doesn’t help. Opening the fridge at 4am, I see a bottle of Aperol, and it looks like fruit juice, I almost take a swig. Sanity prevails and I reach for the milk to add to my coffee. I stare at a sentence for fifteen minutes, remove a comma, then I add it back and close the laptop.                     Walking to the office in the 5am darkness, I think that I am clever in wearing soccer shorts to remain as cool as possible, but as I step into the office, I discover that I have left my trousers at home in the bag I had placed them ...

  Photos of ghosts are everywhere… and yet they are not really ghosts, in most cases, they are the living who have ghosted the living. A hundred methods of high-speed communication and all of them lie dormant. The baby boomers boom like wailing babies across social media to all who exist and yet those from whom we want to hear disappear into a static like grey ether. Is it fear? Is it hate? Is it jealousy? Is it a lack of interest? Perhaps it is fear. After all, I look at photos from 2008 and still feel warm from the memory of them. 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016. Then again, 2018 into 2021. All periods of great romance and love… and in 2021, it all stopped. I am not sure if I just gave up, they gave up, I got too old, I moved to a place filled with people to whom I could not relate. I went from a famous university town, Cambridge, Massachusetts, a place filled with secular humanists, to a city filled with Christians and climate change deniers. I love it here, too, but even people who drin...

 For New Year’s Eve, 2025, I travelled to Boston to be with some friends and to enjoy the snow. I stayed in Cambridge, next to my old apartment, so I could re-live the walks, sights and sounds of my old neighbourhood, which was mostly a tiny nature reserve. I had to work a little while I was there and the snow was so intense that I spent quite a bit of time inside the hotel working in the communal area. One member of staff was so friendly and helpful that we ended up staying in contact through Instagram and have chatted from time to time throughout the year. This morning I woke up and thought of messaging her to see how she was doing. I couldn’t find her… then discovered she unfollowed me and removed me as a follower. It was a sad start to the day. I only hope she is okay.       As the day progresses, I contemplate, what is the balance between insanity and creativity? To create, I feel that it is almost essential to loosen the grips on sanity. Although, consider...

 Writing in a rage. Not now. Yesterday. I wonder if I can publish the things that I say. I should, but political posts tend to cause a nasty backlash. I am simply perplexed, astonished, amazed that we are in the situation we are in. I am grieving.  Slipping on flip flops, I step away and take a short walk in a loop to the lake and back up to the swimming pool. I attempt to swim the rage away. Another beautiful day, but another day that will get too hot and cause my worry for the cat to continue. The week will gradually get hotter with Friday being 39 degrees Celsius (102F). There appears to be no reprieve.  Work begins after the swim, 07:30am, and it’s a relatively calm morning. People are on vacation, maternity leave, paternity leave, sick leave… it seems that mankind as a whole, even if enjoying a job somewhat, is always trying to escape. I invest like a man possessed in the hope of retiring as early as humanly possible. Morning activities mostly done, a mimosa seem...

  The day began too soon. Now the second mimosa sits before me. To be factual, this one is a Poinsette. The bench is in the German style and provides the perfect place to write and drink and see the outside world and all of its inhabitants. It is a truly beautiful day. The lovely and lively Abi serves me drinks and dreams as we drown in an ever-increasing fog of inebriation and heat. Finally, I retreat… back to the pool in a hope to cool down. ‘Hello British’ a voice calls at the pool, a lady I had not seen was sitting behind a bed of plants and a palm tree. After reading in the water for a while, I venture back to my apartment and pour a beer, contemplate going back out, but decide to just stay home and watch The Mandalorian and Grogu. It was silly but entertaining.                     Second day of the weekend and another early start, simply because sleep eludes me. After dreams of AI, I awa...

  The curtains are black… like my heart. Block out the sun. Combat the heat. Venture out and think of the people we can’t meet. The noise is relentless. Four people at a table and all four talking at the same time. A witch-like voice cackles and rises above the others in a sinister laugh. The bar tender is intelligent, he is well-travelled, he loves music and literature, he is good company. He turns up the jukebox and an assault begins… original music versus the witches coven.                   Flip flops are vital in this Texas heat, but I see people in jeans and boots. I feel suffocated by their jeans, as if they are a ghostly unit that leaves the legs and attacks innocent bystanders. Social norms passed on and passed on. They stay in the bar to prolong the time before having to go home to the chaos of family. I leave the bar to go home to peace and quiet and calm and escape the noise of the bar....