Silent

Lethargy.  Feeling motionless, not the boredom of before, inaction in a direction I want to move in; overwhelmed by the endless anxiety from the everyday, constant sense of loss, that as soon as I begin to process one, there are more piling up behind demanding notice until it is a white blur.  A lack of permanence, an instability, an inexistence (of perception) of solid ground.  The need before I'm ready, before there is enough information (or in some cases, any at all) to find a new place to stand.

Also, physically, a sense of not quite being well, but also, not quite being sick.  As if my body can't decide, and so remains in stasis.  Been fighting off something for over a week.  Had two good days in the middle, but been scratchy and slightly achy for a few days now, no change in that.  At least the headache has faded, for now.  (And with it, some of the lethargy: I actually have the energy to write, and read part of a book earlier.  An improvement from how I felt when I woke up.)

Took a sick day.  Took an ibuprofen.  Then got dressed and walked down the street to get a cup of coffee because sometimes both coffee and the walk help with the headaches.  It was colder than I expected, wished for a couple of more layers of clothing.  The coffee shop was warm.  A homeless man sat three tables over with a Starbuck's cup and a jar of peanut butter, his belongings further over in the room.  I was glad he had the warmth.  We both sat there for a while, he stopped in front of me as he was leaving, said something imperceptible to me, we looked at one another, acknowledged one another, and then he shuffled out the door.  I finished my chapter and left, as well.

Outside there was a smell of smoke, or rather a match just struck: focused, sulphur, burnt.  Inside the house, too.  I've been reading Jose Saramago's "Blindness" in which people suddenly become blind, their worlds becoming  an instant milky whiteness, society falling into chaos.  And in the chapter I had just finished, one of the women (of an initial group struck with blindness who had been dumped into an unused mental asylum, to keep the "contagion" contained) had just set the ward of thugs/rapists afire, burning them all (including herself in the process) to death, and setting the entire place aflame.  Perhaps the smell of fire was in my head as I walked out.

The play fields of the nearby park have become one massive mud hole from all the rain, once green, now brown, covered in birds.  Robins and starlings chirp and trill in the trees, and the constant traffic din from the freeway runs as a background noise.  The streets nearby are empty of people and cars.  Were it not for the laughter of a child at recess, I'd think the neighborhood had been deserted while I was busy reading a book.

Days pass and I've done very little.  I lack the drive.