The Greyhound shakes as it sleeps. His legs twitch as his mind tells him he is running, still competing, even from the comfort of a warm room on a comfy sofa in the dark. There is no drunken shouting, no howling laughter from the big pink blobs he used to catch in the side of his sight, none of his brethren alongside him straining to keep up with him, compelling him to go faster and faster, nor is there any cute little flash of hair zooming in front of him that he doesn’t actually know what it is but something tells him deep down that forces him to make chase with a desire so indescribable to hunt it, to catch it and squeeze it and tear at it for all his worth. He is all alone in this race. This doesn’t stop his legs pounding the sofa, relentless they go for this is the biggest race he’s ever been in, where he has to go faster than he has ever done, longer than he has ever done. To win, win, win. Jamie, Jamie, his ears are taking him elsewhere, away from the track, he doesn’t want to but he is being taken away. He opens his eyes to see his master looking at him concerned, he’s okay though he cannot say it was all just a dream.
First day in a long time that I’ve sat outside during my lunch break and read my book. Spring is here I guess. I sat on a bench with my back to the Sun so it was a little windy but I don’t feel overly cold. If anything, I was really comfortable and had an overriding sense of happiness that lunch time could now be outside affairs instead of the shuttle between one room to another, and the time I spent outside could be relaxing rather than the fast paced walk with hands in pockets trying to stave off the cold and burn that excess winter tub that I was managing to do when the rain and wind calmed. Kids next to me, on a bench further down, are rolling a joint. They look like sixth-formers and carry the excitement that this act of rebellion brings that I once felt and many like me and those not like me either. The crowding round of the one rolling, watching, anticipating, jealous of their friend’s new found skill, glad that it is them doing it and not you with your triphalangeal thumbs for fear of failing and all the goodness falling on the floor and being carried away by a gust of wind. What a waste of twenty pounds that would be.
K gets on the train and leaves the UK, the Danish border is closing at 12 their time today. No flights in, no way in unless you are a Danish citizen. For a month. It does feel like a last flight out of Saigon kind of experience because of this COVID stuff, I hope it all gets resolved quickly.
James Creber 