This is the only notebook I have never lost, I can confide a series of journal-like thoughts and they stick like fluorescent stars on a ceiling, floating up above for me to look at. To the world, there are so many things I'd like to say, and I never know if I am really the right person to say them.

Life is fleeting, they say, life is long. We spend too much time not fighting for what we believe in. I want to fight-- let me start at my pace, and do what I can. I will do what I can, to protest, to speak up.

But in order to speak we need to believe in the goodness of people. That they are not deaf, but malleable. That they would pay attention.

We spend so much time in war and fear, in hesitation and insecurity.

I have started swimming again and it helps me to remember. The feeling of my arms scrambling in the water, pushing like I too, could cross the sea if I needed to. My lungs emptying out, the knots come up through my chest. I can feel them, at last, the threads grow so moist they break and I can breathe again.

On Sunday I was a couple of steps behind my friends and when my thoughts started buzzing I said sharply 'okay,' to make them go away. They turned and I laughed it off. Off they went, these thoughts. And I breathed in.

One day I will write about sunshine. About the daisies we caught. I will write about love, all its forms, I will write about hope. More than anything else, I believe in hope. I see every day the goodness of people, not just through children waddling down corridors, mothers, brothers, friends, but those who have weathered through everything and still choose to be kind. Through the way my dad will let me finish my sentence, even if it means he has to stand in a parking lot before telling me everyone else has gone inside, so he has to say goodbye. People are so kind, and day by day I find kindness is no longer so much of a surprise.

A few months ago, I was at a table and some friends of friends said that I never got to finish a sentence, that I was always being interrupted. I don't mean this to sound self-pitying, I just hadn't noticed. It doesn't bother me. But I was touched and surprised by their goodness, that they would look, that they would listen. I think they told me they had counted, and the number of interruptions was eight. Why would anyone count someone else's unfinished sentences, except than because they are themselves nothing but good? So it struck me, when I found some old notes-- went looking for them, from April 2016:

'I had resigned myself to repeated interruptions, so sometimes when I was asked a question I didn’t bother answering. He paused, and let the more confident speaker finish, before asking me the question I had never got to answer. His eyes were clear and green and sincere. I caught him leaning back, his mouth closed and his gaze resting on me thoughtfully. He asked another question, which the overconfident jumped in to respond to, and he asked it again so I would answer.'

So how can I not believe in the right to speak, when some listeners are so endlessly good? And perhaps that is all the reason there needs to be.

sometimes I think we ruminate on things because the loop of thought means we don’t have to forget. It’s a way to bargain with the past, so that it still exists within your present. It’s a way to protect yourself from grief, because if you’re still ruminating then there is nothing to accept. It’s why hatred comes so easy, why a question can be put on a back-shelf for years. It’s why they can never be happy together, because maybe neither of them is done accepting the happiness once lost. I, for instance, never knew how well I could hold grudges till I broke my own heart with one—over and over again. There’s a shard of ice in my heart and it hurts when I try to let the light in. But once I have, the ice will melt and all will be warm again. But not yet. Not yet.

The trouble is you think you have time. For instance, you always think one day you’ll tell her. Not now. Not when it’s so inconvenient. not when it could make things weird. Not if it means losing her. Not if it could make her uncomfortable. not if it could worry her. Not when it could cost you a lifetime of friendship, her kindness, that ease you love about her. and her lovely face, the way she lights up a room. Not when she’s your favourite kind of magic. You won’t tell her now, but maybe later, when you’ve introduced her to all your friends and her friends don’t think you’re weird. When you’re not invasive, not out of place. Just a friend. Maybe one day you’ll introduce her to someone, or she’ll let you meet them, the kind of someone who makes her feel everything she deserves, who gives her all she needs, a handful of rings and a fistful of diamonds kind of love people write about it. Perhaps, as the years go by, you’ll wonder if you could tell her. but it’s not so important anymore. And you lose touch, and hear one day that she got married to that person, that magic person. They post pictures of their honeymoon hiking across the Andes. So you won’t tell her then, either, but instead thread the memories of loving her into that tapestry of fondness, of the things that kept you alive and hopeful, the things that kept you wanting to be better. You’ll write about it, tell someone else as you stroke their hair by the sea. Another friend, maybe, to watch get married to somebody else. And you’ll tell them, that maybe you loved her, loved the fantasy and her enough to know that you didn’t want to risk losing her by loving her wrong. About how you walked home from that rainy café thinking of how you would brew her chamomile tea—anything she wanted. How when you sat next to her you stretched away from her but all you wanted to do was hold her close, her lovely lovely shoulders. How at choir you only wanted her to stand closer, and lean into you, and you imagined swaying, like that, in a kitchen alone. You will tell her that you always held back, but that you loved her, maybe, after all, but it all flew by and the trouble was you still think you have time.

I make myself coffee at half past three in the afternoon, and pour in sugar and pieces of melted chocolate, stirred in with a knife. It’s the choice, I think, the freedom to do things because you’re the only one narrating.

My afternoons often contain some longing for morning. I let myself confuse the two, like the steam is smoke in my eye.

The choice is this, that at half past three, I have the whole day ahead of me, and in my head the hours stretch out so I can appreciate the already gone. I double booked myself all week and I will wind up pulling out on people I imagine I could love, if given half the chance. But can we love freely if we fall in love with sunrises and it’s already the afternoon?

Last night I did for free what I’d love to do forever, and imagined myself again a part of some collective with a vision. I have some ideas, you know, and sometimes I miss the village and knowing where the best water taps are.

Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last decade always in love with one thing or another, and now it’s gone and I sleep soundly, thickly. I wake bleary, like sleep is something I can just fall into. I lick the bottom of my coffee cup and feel like the whole of something worth my own protection. And just like that, there’s a lifetime ahead.

I think I’ll always love mornings more when they bleed a little into my afternoon.

Rising from ashes, the boy drew himself upwards like the air from lava trails, still hot.

Eyes closed, he sang in a clear shrill voice a mountain folk song he had grown up hearing long before the volcano did anything but smoke.

And around him, the trees seemed to awaken, bending their heads towards the boy and one another in appreciation. As the song drifted through their branches, they carried the sound between one another, and nodded. They fiddled with the echo of his melody up over the valley and into the river. There, the marmots looked up from their dam and paused. It was its familiarity, like the promise that bygone times would be bygone no more, that made them pause, made them look over the mountain expectantly.

And the boy, alone in the whirl of died out fires, went on singing, telling himself that someone somewhere really was listening.

Everyone else was asleep and the baby climbed out of his window and fell.

When his mother went to find him she put his bones into place and carried him wailing upstairs. He was furious, after having been put back together, not to have been allowed to carry out his plans of running away.

After all, it was a perfect day for it—the sky was cloudless and birdless and the oceans seemed to be stretching inward, as if kissing the shore was no longer enough and they yearned for much more.

His mother placed him in his cradle and closed the window. Once she was gone, he threw himself out of his cot and crawled out of his bedroom. He found the fire place in the library across the hall. So, into the ash and simmering logs he went and blew up out of the chimney, past the flames and smoke and once again into city air.

There, he was caught by a kite, flown by some foolish child somewhere, and off they soared, skirting the sky.

Down again—the kite shot like an arrow towards a park and the river running through it, and toppled him overboard to land with a splash. He sunk to the bottom, among anchors and forgotten tins, lost socks and overdue bills. Some fish swam past him and he followed them, not sure what else to do, down into the depths of coral caves and rocky passages filled with flirting mermen, when he was caught by a heron and lifted back up into the sky. But the heron, realising he would not be so tasty and juicy and scrumptious, dropped him just as fast.

The baby landed with a crash in the salt of the sea, among jellyfish and sharks. A scuba diver spotted him, bonked one of the sharks on its nose and picked him up. He took the baby up onto his boat.

The divers were robbed and ransacked then, by a ship full of pirates. The pirates took the gold and burnt the ship, and discovered they had looted the baby too, by mistake.

A decision had to be made; half of the crew were in favour of throwing him back overboard, a third suggested finding out what kind of ransom he’d fetch and the rest thought it might be fun to keep him.

The baby didn’t like any of these options, and was relieved when the captain said they’d keep him till they reached the shore, and then find out what he’d fetch.

They meant to take him to someone who would know what was what.

on the way there, to quench their thirst, they stopped at the tavern in town. while the men drank and talked, the baby slipped into a passing woman’s basket. The basket was full of flour and it was with some surprise he found himself tossed onto a baker’s table. Water, then, and yeast, and soon he was being kneaded and left to rest.

Baby found himself in the middle of a loaf, baked for an hour in the fire oven. Wrapped up in paper and propped up on a shelf, he could smell the heat and baked goods around him as he waited patiently, listening to buyers and beggars come and go.

”That one,” said a voice he knew, and found himself carried all the way home.

she took a knife and tore gently at the bread. The baby peered his head out at his mother, who took him out and put him back in his cot, again.

The moon split open and melted

from its metallic kernel

Burning up like the house down

the road in which someone left

Something on too long sometime ago

Outside, we looked up and watched

from our streets and our balconies and window seats

Parents clinging children in their arms

Dancers twining fingers like they couldn’t stop holding each other

That night everyone loved or hated

The darkness was soulless, the darkness was bliss

Though the stars did their best to shine on

This is what it felt like,

the ache

Like a peeled onion, that first shiny film as smooth

as the sight of a crescent

the rest was lava, hot dust, exploding

the layers kept browning and falling away

my ears ringing from how the gunshots kept firing

Up up on his balcony, someone powerful decided

That after all he did miss the old ways

and so he had a new one

manufactured and launched,

And waited.

Slowly but surely, the tides returned

the gunshots stopped,

geese flew up into the bright blue sky

Loving parents put their children down

so that at last they could run and run and run

and they did, some of them never returning to anyone’s arms

and all of those lovers entwined, still standing, went back to dancing like it was as easy as breathing

Soon everything was as if there had never been no moon at all

and no one else peeled away, not like an onion, not like anything so small.

Here’s a bed time story for you (just you).

I have lived here in the woods for centuries, and seen so many children come and go.

When they leave, they leave as adults, too old to play with faeries, too wise to believe in us at all. What they believe in, instead, is in retaining the attention of whoever gave it least. I wonder sometimes if they don’t spend their whole lives wasted in trying to recapture the interest of the people who didn’t listen in the first place. Always you see, they’re all looking for something clever enough, funny enough, to make the arched brow turn and look. Some of them end up as singers, forty years writing love songs. After a while the longing becomes a habit and they forget how to speak any other way than to a certain audience.

Why am I telling you this?

There were once three brothers. The eldest, after a childhood running through the forest, giving into sin and playing tricks on his peers, followed in his father’s footsteps and became a priest. A crowd of church goers who secretly believed themselves holy could satisfy his craving.

The second, who I watched bring little birds back to life only to squash them accidentally when he hid from his mother’s mania, become a doctor. Finally, he could have authority over sickness.

The third, the prettiest of the three who charmed his way all through life, was offered the role of the devil incarnate. He took it, of course. There was no one, you see, whose attention he so desperately wanted as those who had yet to cede to temptation.

I loved all three brothers, in their way, and understood their choices and loved them all the more. Until one day, there were fewer children in the forest, and I heard a whisper among the trees.

They said the priest held certain rituals from which no one ever returned.

Now, I had known the eldest brother, he had been a sweet tempered boy. Trees are liable to spread all kinds of rumours. Not out of malice, mind, just for something to do.

So I decided to see for myself. One day the children said they would go to the midnight mass, so I asked for them to take me with them, but to keep me a secret.

Well. What I saw broke my heart. There he stood, that once delightfully naughty little boy, throwing virgins off a cliff in some bid to impress the self appointed saintly watchers, some group of elderly men, who thought the world an evil place and therefore in need of blood and sacrifice. The ritual horrified me. So I took the children with me and ran back, and called the devil, who appeared before us with a satisfied grin:

« Oh, Scarlett you’re incorrigible » he said with a wink.

« Not now, » I said, « I didn’t call you for that. »

« Shame. What then? »

« I need you to build a net between the cliffs and the underworld, so that the children can be saved, and find a way to tell your brother never to mess with other people’s lives again. »

« With pleasure. Hell’s been full of kids recently. What does he think my place is, some parking lot playground at half term? »

So the devil set about stopping his brother from sacrificing virgins in a bid to make the world a better place.

After saving them, he made all of the children thrown off a cliff enter the priest’s room in the middle of the night and stand, watching him sleep.

That is, until the priest woke up and screamed.

 « Why couldn’t you listen to us? Why didn’t we matter? » they said.

The priest jumped out his window to escape what he’d done—those voices weren’t ones he’d been wanting to hear.

Well, as you can imagine, then the devil took the priest for a spin in the underworld, and I never saw the two brothers again.

As all of us walk in the blossoms of sunlight, those two young men ahead brim with love for each other and through which they see the world as if anew, so much so that they laugh with wonder at the rain. Oh they both believe in separate ways that humanity has curled in on itself, because petrol is drying up and money is in closed fists and doctors are left to die when they treat patients on the wrong side of the war. Things won’t last, it’s in the air and billboards and adverts and secrets and plane tickets and the broken weeping shoes on all those feet you never see. Yet the promise of collapse has made our two dear friends into hedonists in the simplest of ways. Hear what they said in the face of it all, those young people ahead who delighted in the weather—of all things!—they said: I will love I will love I will love. And they did.

If Sasha had told anyone, he would not be here. He’d had a sense about what it was when he’d got the call asking if he could drive across Poland with some unspecified goods, when they’d asked for his phone and he’d had to bargain for one last call with his wife. All of this was confirmed when he finally arrived at the given destination.

Science fiction type metal gates in the middle of a forest, six guys carrying the kind of guns money can’t buy. Six guys prodding him away while they unloaded barrels from the car.

Why were drugs illegal anyway, when so much else wasn’t?

They showed him a basement where a few mattresses lay perpendicular to the corridor. They grinned, guns in hand, and kicked him in. He wondered numbly if he’d be let out again, but he was too exhausted to contemplate the future much further. He fell into sleep, like a pebble to water, he dreamt he was led by the men unloading the truck, taken to a well in the middle of the forest, and made to strip off and dive. He awoke heart pounding and his clothes damp with sweat, before getting ready for the drive back.

Jobs like this made his skin crawl, but they were the jobs you couldn’t really refuse or get wrong without someone deciding you knew too much to be allowed to just walk free. It had started small, this involvement. Through an ex girlfriend whose dad had always seemed nice enough at the time. Nice enough could have you killed for one wrong move, and while the relationship ended years ago, decades, the jobs had become a till death do-us-part kind of commitment.

He drove eighteen hours home, wondering. Did Nadja know? Had she someone set this up? He preferred to stay clear of the family as much as possible, wary of their scheming, the endless talk of how they’d get more money, where from, and who would pay the price if it all went down. Sasha worried his name came up too often as a lamb for the butcher in those discreet conversations, but what could he do? If he told anyone, he’d be dead, and Susanna would be left alone.

Still. Life wasn’t so bad. The jobs were enough, though he’d trade all of it back if he could, for a past with no secrets.