I reach up to the sailboat's cupboard and extract a white ceramic bowl into which I pour a serving and a half of muesli. Onto this I inexpertly slice a banana and pour some low-fat natural yoghurt. I eat my muesli in just under two minutes and my toast magically pops as I hoist the bowl to my lips to slurp down dregs of oats and sugar. I swill the bowl out into the sink and prepare toast with Marmite [occasionally marmalade]. I pull tight looping the excess over under behind and through. My shoes sparkle and clip-clop when I step off the carpet. When I wake in a good mood I tap tap dance away across the linoleum like Morecambe and Wise, although without the grapefruit.

I reach up to the cupboard and extract a white ceramic bowl into which I pour a serving and a half of muesli. Onto this I inexpertly slice a banana and pour some low-fat natural yoghurt. I eat my muesli in just under two minutes and my toast magically pops as I hoist the bowl to my lips to slurp down dregs of oats and sugar. I swill the bowl out into the sink and prepare toast with Marmite [occasionally marmalade]. I pull a belt tight looping the excess over under behind and through. My shoes sparkle and clip-clop when I step off the carpet. When I wake in a good mood I tap tap dance away across the linoleum like Morecambe and Wise, although without the grapefruit.

I probably do most of this without thinking. I'm not unconscious but these things happen unconsciously. Does my brain not make a memory or do I immediately erase each memory so I cannot remember the thought but only the act? Who is making that decision? Who is in charge if I am not thinking? Is my unremembered dream me still me or another? I have fewer and fewer memories of myself. Now I am catching up to reality, soon I will just be blank. I need more milk. I need more Breakfast is a silent hour of unholy, unthinking meditation, while my brain slopes off to consider ecumenical harmonies and philosophical profundity. With toast. Yet sometimes I just stare at the cupboards and look at the knobs.

I probably do most of this without thinking. I'm not unconscious but these things happen unconsciously. Does my brain not make a memory or do I immediately erase each memory so I cannot remember the thought but only the act? Who is making that decision? Who is in charge if I am not thinking? Is my unremembered me still me or another? I have fewer and fewer memories of myself. Now I am catching up to reality, soon I will just be blank. I need more milk. I need more Marmite. Breakfast is a silent hour of unholy, unthinking meditation, while my big brain slopes off to consider ecumenical harmonies and philosophical profundity. With toast. Yet sometimes I just stare at the cupboards and look at the knobs.

The room, this kitchen, is fairly squalid. Bits of the hardboard are showing, there is a patina of grease across every surface and strange brown dots on off-white plastics and old cracked tiles. Everything looks rather ill-tempered. The boiler in the corner smokes forty-a-day, the gas oven is a haggard old conservative. The washing machine has a range of compulsive disorders. To cover up the grime, I painted the walls green. this hasn't helped. The grime returns like a five o'clock shadow. Always returning. The electric kettle is scarred with chalky tears and alien greens calcifying around the base. Brilliant rings of coffee emblazon the speckled laminate. Knives and forks carve their niche in drawers of dried sludge. Tea towels are covered in happiness and other things.

The room, this kitchen, is fairly squalid. Bits of the hardboard are showing, there is a patina of grease across every surface and strange brown dots on off-white plastics and old cracked tiles. Everything looks rather ill-tempered. The boiler in the corner smokes forty-a-day, the gas oven is a haggard old conservative. The washing machine has a range of compulsive disorders. To cover up the grime, I painted the walls green. But this hasn't helped. The grime returns like a five o'clock shadow. Always returning. The electric kettle is scarred with chalky tears and alien greens calcifying around the base. Brilliant rings of coffee emblazon the speckled laminate. Knives and forks carve their niche in drawers of dried sludge. Tea towels are covered in tea, and other things.

I am learning the fucking dictionary. Special dictionary of good words. Here is a good word: Lugubrious, which means sounding sad or dismal. But not crying, and not just sad, not tragic sad. It's when you are sad AND miz. So most people are lugubrious and they suffer from lugubriousness. They are lugubritious. They are lugubridites. I will use today. I turn on the radio. It has a small black plastic fascia, as advertised. It tells me the news around the world. None of which means anything. Who cares who dies where? What does it mean when that poor woman was dragged into a ditch? Horrible, truly horrible things done to her. Should I be frightened? Lock my windows tighter? Carry mace in my bag? Be prepared.

I am learning the dictionary. Special dictionary of good words. Here is a good word: Lugubrious, which means sounding sad or dismal. But not crying, and not just sad, not tragic sad. It's when you are sad AND miz. So most people are lugubrious and they suffer from lugubriousness. They are lugubritious. They are lugubridites. I will use lugubrious today. I turn on the radio. It has a small black plastic fascia, as advertised. It tells me all the news around the world. None of which means anything. Who cares who dies where? What does it mean when that poor woman was dragged into a ditch? Horrible, truly horrible things done to her. Should I be frightened? Lock my windows tighter? Carry mace in my bag? Be prepared.

There are seven plastic bottles of pills in front of me. Six white and one orange. Each contains assorted good drugs. Healthy drugs that I eat each morning and every evening to keep my body working. Every day I wake up and eat them again and that is why I am alive. I live to eat drugs because without them I would not be. Each bottle has a long name and carries warnings of disfiguring or fatal side-effects. I stop and wonder what would happen if I didn't eat the drugs. This dislocated thought has no home to go to. It rattles around my mind mindlessly idly wondering what to do with itself. The kettle boils huffily and I make green tea to help me swallow pride

There are seven plastic bottles of pills in front of me. Six white and one orange. Each contains assorted good drugs. Healthy drugs that I eat each morning and every evening to keep my body working. Every day I wake up and eat them again and that is why I am alive. I live to eat the drugs because without them I would not be. Each bottle has a long name and carries warnings of disfiguring or fatal side-effects. I stop and wonder what would happen if I didn't eat the drugs. This dislocated thought has no home to go to. It rattles around my mind mindlessly idly wondering what to do with itself. The kettle boils huffily and I make green tea to help me swallow them.

The crunch of cold toast, butter and candy Shards of bread shatter and fall to the depths of the kitchen floor. From the room where I stand you can see right through to the room where I sit and watch television. The sitting room is painted canary yellow because there is no sunlight. The room glows with false hope. Heavy net curtains that hang over the windows are stained brown through decades of sadness. Light and air suffer chronic heaviness in this room. The brown oak boards of the floor suck the humours in and demoralise them. It is a good room in which to sit, and stare. My mind drifts, wandering towards the dark looming space and I feel the morning's optimism gently fade behind me.

The crunch of cold toast, butter and Marmite. Shards of bread shatter and fall to the depths of the kitchen floor. From the room where I stand you can see right through to the room where I sit and watch television. The sitting room is painted a canary yellow because there is no sunlight. The room glows with false hope. Heavy net curtains that hang over the windows are stained brown through decades of sadness. Light and air suffer chronic heaviness in this room. The brown oak boards of the floor suck the humours in and demoralise them. It is a good room in which to sit, and stare. My mind drifts, wandering towards the dark looming space and I feel the morning's optimism gently fade behind me.

Look out the window. What do you see? It is the world. It is the world outside the window. What can I say about the world spinning slow and silent outside this window? Can I prove waterfalls or neuroscience or stock-car racing or gun control? Can I inspire belief in knights and dragons or gods and angels? Can I tell you about poverty or war or disability? I can tell you about light and trees and about the effect of the battleship I can tell you about tarmac and brick, glass and grass. I see only what I can see. That is my window on the world. Look to the heavens. What do you see? Everything! Shout the boys. Well not really I say. There is more.

Look out the window. What do you see? It is the world. It is the world outside the window. What can I say about the world spinning slow and silent outside this window? Can I prove waterfalls or neuroscience or stock-car racing or gun control? Can I inspire belief in knights and dragons or gods and angels? Can I tell you about poverty or war or disability? I can tell you about light and about trees and about the effect of the wind. I can tell you about tarmac and brick, glass and grass. I see only what I can see. That is my window on the world. Look to the heavens. What do you see? Everything! Shout the boys. Well not really I say. There is more.

The boys sit at the table. When was that? It has been so long now. How old must they be? How old must I be? They sat on stools that are gone Each of them crushed changing lightbulbs or climbing into attics or repairing curtains caught up in internecine warfare. Happy days of noise. The violent riots and rituals of childhood. Why then in my memory do they sit so quietly at the table? Why won't they look up at me? In the bathroom the mirror anchors I am here and now and all this dust and grime exists for me. Every time I look up I see my father's brow knit and hear my mother's voice. Holy harangues Batman. Desperation in her exhortations. Look at me.

The boys sit at the table. When was that? It has been so long now. How old must they be? How old must I be? They sat on stools that are gone now. Each of them crushed changing lightbulbs or climbing into attics or repairing curtains caught up in internecine warfare. Happy days of noise. The violent riots and rituals of childhood. Why then in my memory do they sit so quietly at the table? Why won't they look up at me? In the bathroom the mirror anchors me. I am here and now and all this dust and grime exists for me. Every time I look up I see my father's brow knit and hear my mother's voice. Holy harangues. Desperation in her exhortations. Look at me.

I have a PlayStation VR. It sits beneath the video player in the front room. It has a blanket made of dust because I never change The console pad sits on the floor and twists its way along the perimeter of its chain depending on where it gets kicked. It is unloved. Tied up. Dejected. I rarely play anymore. Not now. I never clean the console. It is not the fault of the dust covered object, nor is the dust to blame. No-one is at fault, I do not wish to be negative. The dust must cover the black plastic box. Dust that was me once. Tiny dry used cells. And now I forget who the bright, shiny, aggressively blinking box was for? Was that me then?

I have a PlayStation. It sits beneath the video player in the front room. It has a blanket made of dust because I never change the game. The console pad sits on the floor and twists its way along the perimeter of its chain depending on where it gets kicked. It is unloved. Tied up. Dejected. I rarely play anymore. Not now. I never clean the console. It is not the fault of the dust covered object, nor is the dust to blame. No-one is at fault, I do not wish to be negative. The dust must cover the black plastic box. Dust that was me once. Tiny dry used cells. And now I forget who the bright, shiny, aggressively blinking box was for? Was that me then?

I am telling the boys about happiness. It is a long time ago. When it was still sunny. And we sat and watched waves break carefully into energy and foam and then slowly suck themselves back together. I said happiness is like butter The boys wanted to know about happiness. So I explained that in my understanding of time every moment is written irrevocably in an entropic history of the universe. A transparent cosmic record like a library card. Every atom checked in and out, while we use our bifocal perspective to argue feebly about semiotics, context, fact, and fiction. We cannot see what we are looking at. One day we will learn to invoke that perfect record and rewind time, to see history and know happiness.

I am telling the boys about happiness. It is a long time ago. When it was still sunny. And we sat and watched waves break carefully into energy and foam and then slowly suck themselves back together. I said happiness is like that wave. The boys wanted to know about happiness. So I explained that in my understanding of time every moment is written irrevocably in an entropic history of the universe. A transparent cosmic record like a library card. Every atom checked in and out, while we use our bifocal perspective to argue feebly about semiotics, context, fact, and fiction. We cannot see what we are looking at. One day we will learn to invoke that perfect record and rewind time, to see history and know happiness.

The backdoor has warped in its frame and whistles as the drafts wash through. Outside on the ground sits a small table decorated with painted flowers and three cups of water. One salted. One steamed. Two piles of small round stones sit there forever. I collect perfect pebbles from the beach. Each stone aspires to rotational symmetry and each fails. When I find a superior stone on the beach I bring it home. I take one imperfect pebble out and replace it. There are 128 in total. At seven o'clock I squat at my backdoor and move one pebble from anterior to posterior. Every day is thus unique. Every day is changed. So we mark out time. Our time. It is my favourite, slowest click clack clock.

The backdoor has warped in its frame and whistles as the drafts wash through. Outside on the ground sits a small table decorated with painted flowers and three cups of water. One salted. One rained. One steamed. Two piles of small round stones sit there. I collect perfect pebbles from the beach. Each stone aspires to rotational symmetry and each fails. When I find a superior stone on the beach I bring it home. I take one imperfect pebble out and replace it. There are 128 in total. At seven o'clock I squat at my backdoor and move one pebble from anterior to posterior. Every day is thus unique. Every day is changed. So we mark out time. Our time. It is my favourite, slowest click clack clock.

heaven Somewhere. Lulling the boys into drowsiness with ideas to disbelieve. That their brains run behind reality to let the words they hear sync with lips that speak. Only 80 milliseconds or so but sound is so slow compared to light. I tell them walking through doorways wipes their memory - that parents come in and look confused and go out and come in again. Looking for something. They laughed then. I explain that when children waggle their heads really fast their brain just stops looking and shows old movies of what it thinks is there. About how our senses filter combinations of energy spectrums - which is why chocolate tastes so nice. For an hour we just waggle our heads. After that we stuck to Winnie the Pooh.

Bedtime. Somewhere. Lulling the boys into drowsiness with ideas to disbelieve. That their brains run behind reality to let the words they hear sync with lips that speak. Only 80 milliseconds or so but sound is so slow compared to light. I tell them walking through doorways wipes their memory - so that parents come in and look confused and go out and come in again. Looking for something. They laughed then. I explain that when children waggle their heads really fast their brain just stops looking and shows old movies of what it thinks is there. About how our senses filter combinations of energy spectrums - which is why chocolate tastes so nice. For an hour we just waggle our heads. After that we stuck to Winnie the Pooh.

The boys want to know how small an atom is. We are on the beach. We have endless time and miles of sand. I tell them to count the number of grains of sand on the beach and they laugh because I am stupid. Breathe in deep I say. Hold it. Count the atoms in your breath I say and they laugh and cough at the same time. That breath has more atoms than there is sand from here to the lighthouse. Close your eyes. Imagine one grain of that sand the size of our house. Now put a marble on your bedroom floor. They nod. That marble is the nucleus and the garden hedge is all electrons. Everything else is space. Mostly we are spaces endlessly.

The boys want to know how small an atom is. We are on the beach. We have endless time and miles of sand. I tell them to count the number of grains of sand on the beach and they laugh because I am stupid. Breathe in deep I say. Hold it. Hold it. Count the atoms in your breath I say and they laugh and cough at the same time. That breath has more atoms than there is sand from here to the lighthouse. Close your eyes. Imagine one grain of that sand the size of our house. Now put a marble on your bedroom floor. They nod. That marble is the nucleus and the garden hedge is all electrons. Everything else is space. Mostly we are spaces.

Is the universe intentional They ask. is it expanding? Infinitely, I say. Into what? Good question. What about lunch? I ask. Where is lunch? They laugh pointing at each other's belly. If you wrote down all the food that was ever eaten when would you stop? Tea time says one. Never, the other. Just so, each universe defines itself. They look blank. I ask, do you know where our universe began? They shake their heads. It began in a crisp packet. Really. One little boy shook his crisps so hard that it caused a teeny tiny quantum fluctuation in a single fleck of powdered cheese and created an entire universe. And when he opened the packet. Whoooosh! Bang. Out it came. That's why lunch is so important.

Is the universe infinite? They ask. And is it expanding? Infinitely, I say. Into what? Good question. What about lunch? I ask. Where is lunch? They laugh pointing at each other's belly. If you wrote down all the food that was ever eaten when would you stop? Tea time says one. Never, the other. Just so, each universe defines itself. They look blank. I ask, do you know where our universe began? They shake their heads. It began in a crisp packet. Really. One little boy shook his crisps so hard that it caused a teeny tiny quantum fluctuation in a single fleck of powdered cheese and created an entire universe. And when he opened the packet. Whoooosh! Bang. Out it came. That's why lunch is so important.

Is it time to go now? Faces plead. But time is infinite too. In an infinite universe there is infinite time. Time starts. Time starts at the beginning. Just like height. And mass. Time has no end. Light has no beginning. Light just is. Massless. Timeless. I am a blip that blips in and out over and over. Each time I experience life as an endless journey of endurance and struggle and then blip. I am gone. Blip. Bloop. All beginnings and endings and that is very exciting. But lives are special. Lives come and they go like so many tides until time stops. I go. You go. Repeat until the light has gone. It is time to go It is time for ice cream and Fanta.

Is it time to go now? Faces plead. But time is infinite too. In an infinite universe there is infinite time. Time starts. Time starts at the beginning. Just like height. And mass. Time has no end. Light has no beginning. Light just is. Massless. Timeless. I am a blip that blips in and out over and over. Each time I experience life as an endless journey of endurance and struggle and then blip. I am gone. Blip. All beginnings and endings and that is very exciting. But lives are not special. Lives come and they go like so many tides until time stops. I go. You go. Repeat until the light has gone. It is time to go now. It is time for ice cream and Fanta.

You don't control us you don't own us you can't tell us what to say what to do. No I say. I do not own you I cannot control you I will not tell you what to say. We are not yours they yell. Hmm. But you are kind of mine. I am yours. Your mother birthed you, her mother her, her mother her, hermotherher. We are the same spaghetti Programmed together. Centuries of contracts transfused through birth, blood, and placenta. Invisible unchangeable and eternal. You cannot rewrite that You are me. You are your elders. Perfection slowly degrading. We are a coded string mutated and mutating, waiting and mating. You are what you are. Even if broken. Like me. That is what family is. A chain.

You don't control us you don't own us you can't tell us what to say what to do. No I say. I do not own you I cannot control you I will not tell you what to say. We are not yours they yell. Hmm. But you are kind of mine. I am yours. Your mother birthed you, her mother her, her mother her, hermotherher. We are the same code. Programmed together. Centuries of contracts transfused through birth, blood, and placenta. Invisible unchangeable and eternal. You cannot rewrite that list. You are me. You are your elders. Perfection slowly degrading. We are a coded string mutated and mutating, waiting and mating. You are what you are. Even if broken. Like me. That is what family is. A chain.

Look at all that dust. Dust on the floor, in the sky. I write a haiku with a toe. I need my shoes for prose. "If broken YOU pay" said the sign. Now you pay but cannot break. We cannot touch what isn't ours. We cannot colour in the 'a's. The terms cannot be recycled, resold. Tap tap. I reduce and replenish. Diminish and enrich. Each word building on its provenance. An epitaph of stone letters in the cloud, weathering salt air and brine while bones below mulch, mutating into new life. Blooming. Look! My dust lives on in broccoli My stardust silts up this book. My marks and erasures. My mark made eternal. It cannot be mulched. We are so very unique. Where are my shoes?

Look at all that dust. Dust on the floor, in the sky. I write a haiku with a toe. I need my shoes for prose. "If broken YOU pay" said the sign. Now you pay but cannot break. We cannot touch what isn't ours. We cannot colour in the 'a's. The terms cannot be recycled, resold. Tap tap. I reduce and replenish. Diminish and enrich. Each word building on its provenance. An epitaph of stone letters in the cloud, weathering salt air and brine while bones below mulch, mutating into new life. Blooming. Look! My dust lives on in petals. My stardust silts up this book. My marks and my erasures. My mark made eternal. It cannot be mulched. We are so very unique. Where are my shoes?

So many words and ways to mix them. Mixing up all the glorious drugs. All in. Grinding them to dust. Life is so noisy.I stretch my mind. I don't have much more to give. I wonder if my mind is rubbery or brittle. Does it stretch? It looks rubbery but maybe all those synapses simply snap if you give them a good tug. Could you get your hand into a living head and give it a squeeze? Would it hurt? Would you know? Would it twang back in or squelch out? Could you reach in and pull out the brain? Would it bleed? And would you Would you understand that your brain was absent? Would you feel In your heart. If your brain was taken away?

So many words and ways to mix them. Mixing up all the drugs. All in. Grinding them to dust. Life is so noisy.I stretch my mind. I don't have much more to give. I wonder if my mind is rubbery or brittle. Does it stretch? It looks rubbery but maybe all those synapses simply snap if you give them a good tug. Could you get your hand into a living head and give it a squeeze? Would it hurt? Would you know? Would it twang back in or squelch out? Could you reach in and pull out the brain? Would it bleed? And would you know? Would you understand that your brain was absent? Would you feel anything. In your heart. If your brain was taken away?

I drink all the drugs and lean my head flat on the table. A van honks. A laptop grinds data into digital dust beside me. My head is on the letter. My eyes in line with the first sentence. My focus shifts back and forth. I squint at the last paragraph. I know how it begins. It says: "Everything is born out of death. Life is a closed loop. There is limited energy, infinite time. There is infinite happiness, limited time. We release back into the world so other atoms can try again. They can try harder to be happier." The words are clear. I see them clearly. The first words: "Dear boys." Around the text the world blurs. My breathing is slowing. It is quiet now.

I drink all the drugs and lean my head flat on the table. A van honks. A laptop grinds data into digital dust beside me. My head is on the letter. My eyes in line with the first sentence. My focus shifts back and forth. I squint at the last paragraph. I know how it begins. It says: "Everything is born out of death. Life is a closed loop. There is limited energy, infinite time. There is infinite happiness, limited time. We release our atoms back into the world so other atoms can try again. They can try harder to be happier." The words are clear. I see them clearly. The first words: "Dear boys." Around the text the world blurs. My breathing is slowing. It is quiet.

Taps drip, clocks tick, tocks kick, caps tip. Excited molecules drift slowly from my body and heat lighter elements above creating tiny ripples in the air. The warm light of the sun diffuses through frosted glass and happy motes of dust can be seen, dancing a waltz with a fine wool teased from my jumper. A late gray hair makes a lazy descent, buffeted by atomic eddies as nature slowly and infinitesimally reallocates the incalculable energy around us. On every surface a million microscopic fragments gather to create micro-narrative archaeologies. Slowly the universe cools, Across my road nobody walks past. In the river a fish nibbles at pondweed. On the table the body suggests subtle suggillation. In a bag of crisps somewhere nearby a universe explodes gorgeously.

Taps drip, clocks tick, tocks kick, caps tip. Excited molecules drift slowly from my body and heat lighter elements above creating tiny ripples in the air. The warm light of the sun diffuses through frosted glass and happy motes of dust can be seen, dancing a waltz with a fine wool teased from my jumper. A late gray hair makes a lazy descent, buffeted by atomic eddies as nature slowly and infinitesimally reallocates the incalculable energy around us. On every surface a million microscopic fragments gather to create micro-narrative archaeologies. Slowly the universe cools, and dies. Across my road nobody walks past. In the river a fish nibbles at pondweed. On the table the body suggests subtle suggillation. In a bag of crisps somewhere nearby a universe explodes.