It feels like I'm being watched.
I woke in darkness, too early, dissected the night in half with the sudden motion of my tired eyelids. Have I heard something? The windows and balcony door are open -- the likelihood is high. For a moment I lay there motionless in the heat. A stifled breeze makes the trees rustle beneath the windows like a stream. The bed spring gives out a nervous creak as I turn. I let a few minutes pass before I get up and go to the kitchen for a glass of water.
The fume extractor is still on, a constant industrious drone. I must have left it on after preparing dinner: spicy potatoes, pan-fried with onions, madras curry powder, and cumin and coriander seeds (a deviation, barely, from this recipe). On the table there remained a couple crumpled napkins, half a watermelon, its vermillion flesh ripe enough to resemble candy floss, and cups with coffee remnants in them. I cover the watermelon with cling film and put it in the fridge. A sweet, exceptionally juicy late-August watermelon is for me a sentimental thing. A delight for the mouth but the particular sadness for the heart: another summer is gone.
I finish the glass of water and get out onto the balcony for fresh air. It's humid, smells of swamp, grassy and strong. In the distance lightning bolts flash and spread across the night sky like vericose veins. I look up, the stars are hidden. I lean against the balcony railing, my eyes travelling from window to window, all unlit, impenetrable, in the building across. It's still around me, I'm no longer sure if I heard anything at all.
I go back to bed only to wake up again shortly, again from the feeling of being watched. I look out of the bedroom window -- and it's the full moon's metallic uncomfortable stare, has been all along.
I woke in darkness, too early, dissected the night in half with the sudden motion of my tired eyelids. Have I heard something? The windows and balcony door are open -- the likelihood is high. For a moment I lay there motionless in the heat. A stifled breeze makes the trees rustle beneath the windows like a stream. The bed spring gives out a nervous creak as I turn. I let a few minutes pass before I get up and go to the kitchen for a glass of water.
The fume extractor is still on, a constant industrious drone. I must have left it on after preparing dinner: spicy potatoes, pan-fried with onions, madras curry powder, and cumin and coriander seeds (a deviation, barely, from this recipe). On the table there remained a couple crumpled napkins, half a watermelon, its vermillion flesh ripe enough to resemble candy floss, and cups with coffee remnants in them. I cover the watermelon with cling film and put it in the fridge. A sweet, exceptionally juicy late-August watermelon is for me a sentimental thing. A delight for the mouth but the particular sadness for the heart: another summer is gone.
I finish the glass of water and get out onto the balcony for fresh air. It's humid, smells of swamp, grassy and strong. In the distance lightning bolts flash and spread across the night sky like vericose veins. I look up, the stars are hidden. I lean against the balcony railing, my eyes travelling from window to window, all unlit, impenetrable, in the building across. It's still around me, I'm no longer sure if I heard anything at all.
I go back to bed only to wake up again shortly, again from the feeling of being watched. I look out of the bedroom window -- and it's the full moon's metallic uncomfortable stare, has been all along.
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