Confinement Two

Ban Apinihan, 26/4/2020







In the face of a hangover all bravery, every indication of salvation, runs busy body past the starting line; in the opposite direction, cheered upon by the adversaries and to the dismayed exaltations of the losing side.



Alcohol is the great flattener, the fermented or distilled answer to longevity. Morning lungs are sore, the head pounds inexplicably, members shatter their previous mastery and tremble precariously.



I remember sunrises full of grace, sunlight peering from below a purple horizon and filling the sky like a breath. I remember dotted stars fading before the majesty. I remember the sliver of the moon made transparent by sun’s rising tide. I remember heartfelt thanks as morning dew kissed grass blades and petals farewell. I remember the dank dark soil murmuring its Song of Ascents while butterflies and dragonflies caressed the air.



But today I awaken at noon to my darkened room, for I had the foresight to close the impending light out before collapsing the night before. Slivers of light at odd angles crash in through the wooden tiles and settle there, blinding if small, a concentrated hit, on an ancient beam or illuminating a fastidious spider web.



Outside voices from the lake tell me that the fishermen and women are out, foraging amongst the sweet water weeds under the shade of shore trees. Life, the thing I left behind with my half-finished glass of Cahors, has somehow managed to go on without me, has somehow managed a kick start of cockcrows and ruffled feathers and with that the villagers exchange gossip or talk about food. I can hear their sturdy palms flatten the water to drive the fish into their nets. In my mind’s eye I can see them peeling the tiny black shellfish off the river grass and can hear them being dropped into floating baskets.



I stumbled from bed this morning, made it to the balcony door and opened it as an old man would a birthday present. The light of day collapsed upon me, exclaiming Holy! Holy! Holy! From your vicious and head wracking hangover, from this debilitating state of affairs we – the water and the light, the ripples and the spider webs, the voices and the pounding, the trembling and the weakness….



….from all this we will sublimate a morning.