glittyknittykitty

« Laure Drogoul - Amplified knitting | Main | Mulberry »

November 6, 2007

Nanowrimo: things that we might lose in a fire

Today has been hard in terms of writing: my mind has been on other, completely non-important stuff. It bloody takes up space in the brain, doesn't it, unneccessary stuff.

It’s not what I might save, she thinks, it’s what I might lose, and now I’d lose so much more even though the cabin is so small. There is lightening sometimes, with the storms and it does strike close in. She’s the only one with out a mast of some sort, be it CB Radio or to hang flags on. She dare not, the possibilities too terrifying. She doesn’t want to call on fate and see what it might have in for her if she tempts it. Tempting fate. I do like that term though, she thinks, because really I’m just living. What sort of temptation is that? Surely fate has got better things on its mind than me?

I’m serious fucking small fry, she yells out to the west- you’ve really got nothing better to do? I can’t believe I fucking talking to myself. What a donkey.

So ok, she sits down on the crumbling step outside’ve the plastic greenhouse to one side, and starts to wash the tea and washing towels, rubbing them back and forth in cold soapy water against the washboard the Major gave her back when she’d agreed to do this. She’s got her last pair of Marigolds on and she pushes down and up, revelling in the work it gives her shoulders. The bowl sits between her legs and she falls into a semi-trance, fading her focus so that everything in front of her, the hedge and fencing, the gorse and squat hawthorn bushes, all merge into a grey and dark mirage. It does the brain good to just mutate sight in to something that doesn’t make sense- a kind of visual meditation, not thinking about anything, but still her arms moving up and down, making sure to connect with the wash board.

Things we might lose in a fire- she mentally walks around the house. That I would be bothered about, she adds.

1. Her thick copper bottom pan that Midge found in the shell of an old hotel. It’s got dents in it, she remembers throwing it at someone once and it bouncing on the concrete outside the cabin, but even when warming milk, when it’s left on the side and dries out and the evaporated skin of milk hardens- it’s a good pan.
2. An old Chinese calendar for the year 2007. It’s for kids, is bright red and green and gold, drawn on a kind of bamboo lattice, with symbols and an apple cheeked plump child with screwed up eyes. Even when she was given it it was way out of date. But somehow it doesn’t matter.
3. Her tea towel from Bergerac. It’s a deep olive green, with rose hatching woven in to it and pictures of a chateau and a vineyard in glossy thread. It is quite the most beautiful thing. She remembers she found it washed up in the bay and it was grimy and stiff with salt. It took three rinses and now the colours make her smile.
4. Her salt shaker, tiny, made of plastic, but pretending to be cut glass, with a chipped metal plastic lid. It is the size of her top thumb joint and only fits a teaspoon of salt.

She realises she hasn’t even got out of the kitchen yet. How could she save all of these things in a fire? After all, to worry about losing them implies that they would be saved if possible. Maybe she should collect them all together, keep thinking, put them in a basket by the door.

Posted by scumkitten at November 6, 2007 10:44 PM

Comments

Post a comment