George leant against the old chair and spoke to the wall. His voice was quiet. Careful. Everyone was asleep, though he could smell smoke from somewhere outside. The eyes watched him, taking in the boy’s angles, his uncombed hair, his need to be noticed. The face felt old today. Antic even. Time streamed upwards and backwards to places that seemed to reassemble and then to disappear again. All those times of weight and so much care, whispering to him, coloured now in grey, evaporating.
”I know you are watching this house” said the boy. ”There is so much dust in the air when you are awake. It lands on my hands when I am reading and I know that you are thinking. When there is so much dust, I laugh. Sometimes though, when there is just a little dust I feel sad and worry that you wil not be able to do what I know you promised to do. ”
How formally the boy spoke. Like a boy out of a book no one bothered to read anymore. The mouth altered a little. A dip of the line. Sardonic perhaps. The boy was right of course. He had so much to do but watching wearied him. So much of the same, so many echoes, so little ever new. He needed George and he needed her too, but where she was, he couldn’t know. They wouldn’t show him, so there had to be something else instead. A new way from the old way. George would help him and then there could be rest, release. He could disappear. The mouth dipped again. It was his mouth that missed others the most; one other. One only other, tasting of cinamon.
The morning light in the room changed as if someone had opened the windows into the garden and come in. The air sparkled and danced, happy, breathing over George’s head, his hands, his hair. The change was all about breathing, breathing differently, finding in the new breath the places hidden from the world. And with this new breath came dust. So much dust that you would think you would choke, but this was not dust to suffocate, this was dust to tell you things, to make you know, as it settled down lightly, so words would grow, shapes would form. The dust was a greeting…
George held out his arms and shut both eyes. The air was so busy now, so much dancing, so much knowing. Through his closed eyes, the dust started to form shapes. You could start to see when this world’s seeing shut down and let go and it was with the letting go that these new shapes formed. You had to trust this time. George did trust this time, he knew that the face would not let him down. It was writing for him and now George had begun reading he felt safer, more hopeful about what must happen and must happen soon. Very soon as he could feel the nearness. The smoke was behind him but he must never open his eyes. Dust and smoke. George’s prayer was beginning to be answered. The shapes were beckoning, he started to read.
Really good Jan!! x