the last half

All significantly mundane occurrences begin or end on the porch. Like sex that doesn't end up anywhere; that traverses dates only to rewind. Books which are read whilst waiting diligently for the second education. Two-legged, three-eyed fancies over a cup of diuretic tea, jogged around the catwalk of Grafton bridge. Plans for travel, art and fame -- the most mundane fancy of them all.

Suddenly, the illustrated inside space -- meant for insignificantly mundane tasks such as sleeping, hair-brushing and thinking -- becomes the ultimate anti-asylum. Insomnia rears its best when there is less capacity for its consequent occupational output. The cosy walls are insulated with grief and the porch steps represent the unattainable starting line. Start before the starting line. End at the beginning.

Is it bad luck to leave a knife out on the front porch? Maybe there'll be red marks through the letterbox slot in the morning, where the neighbour diced her tobacco (carelessly, or deliberately). Maybe the red car parked outside will be painted a shade darker in a passive-public protest. Over what, who knows -- but certainly not smoking. Perhaps I'd find myself lock-picked and sigh, with the knowledge of dreams ... I'd say quietly to my visitor, "thanks for coming." Followed by another sigh. And then nothing.

I'd start hallucinating that the lamp posts outside were the moon, all of them, all-full twenty-four moons lined up at very exactly regular intervals. Parallel to each other on either side of the street. Not earth, obviously. But something like it.

Just as I receive my welcome visitor, the tobacco-wielding neighbour collects one too. He (the visitor) crosses past my porch, head inclined away from the gracious homicide adjacent: towards the moons. He slips in through Miss Cigarette's window. Elegantly. Practised. He slips into her bed with the porch's wisdom tied at his ankles.