Sunday in March

’- But don’t you want to drink it?
- Drink what?
- The Blue?
- The Blue what.
Her voice is flat, dry and annoyed.
- The Blue that comes through the window!
- The light that comes through the tinted glass you mean. No, I don’t want to drink light, no-one can, stupid!
- Oh.
She crosses her arms over her chest and turnes away from me. I should have kept quiet.
- What about the clouds?
A long silence; and then a sigh.
- What about them!?
- Can you eat them?
- Oh God, here we go….
- You said you touched one out of the window of the plane when you came back, after visiting granddad in America, remember? You said it was like cotton. I thought, I thought maybe it tastes like candyfloss?
- I lied stupid! Didn’t you guess? I mean, when are you going to grow up and start thinking like normal people? You can’t open a window in a plane, its sealed. Everyone knows that!
- I didn’t.
When she told me we were on the stairs on our way up to the first floor landing and our bedrooms. The sun was shining on her and she was so tanned. She had little golden hair all over her legs that looked pretty.
- I would still like it.
- What!
She turns around quickly sneering at me like the weasel in the cartoon I watch in the mornings.
-To eat a plate of cloud and drink a cup of blue.
-You will have to be quiet now.
She takes my hand softly and the organ starts to play.

A nightingale cried all night

A nightingale cried all night. I did not know they could cry or what they sounded like at all, I had only heard of them in stories.
It was a very dark night, no red city fog, no dark velvet forest just one crying bird and I in a room with walls that was cold and damp to the touch.
Nightingales are supposed to sound beautiful when the sing, to hear them cry is another matter.

I tried to talk soothing to him and I tried to sing a lullaby I remembered as I sang. I nearly touched him, even though I am afraid of birds. I contemplated letting him out of the cage but the though of having a flying crying bird in my room was too much.

The LED display on the alarm clock was slowly approaching 3am.
I lay down in bed and thought about summer, about the smell of bark and sunshine on skin.
The nightingale made me cry.
It was so dark.
My throat felt tight.
I had nearly forgotten everything I ever remembered.
I woke up.
The alarm rang and the nightingale was asleep. I let the dark blue velvet stay over his cage and drew the curtains. It was dawn.
I put the kettle on.

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