Disquiet

I am scraped clean of sleep, almost.

Most of my sleep was deep and relaxed, all the better for R being home. There was a moment when someone named James took me to a strange Dali-esque garden in shadows, and showed me a large clock, like the Doomsday clock, so close to midnight.

'Late is the hour' came the voice. Shut up Gandalf. Did you wake me early to tell me the hour is late? No wonder Theoden got annoyed with you.

Remembering the mountains, the dreams where the soldiers are below in the dark, and it's time to go.

The dark, looking up at the moon through the smoke of a campfire, someone is cooking a mess of, what, beans? Not the same place. A skinny man with a bush beard speaks to me.

'Is the wind telling you things again?'

I push back my hair and tie it into a knot at the back, then realise Smokingboot doesn't do that. She seldom puts her hair up because she can't stop it pulling. Also these arms are much bigger than hers. Then I realise that these are somehow stacked dreams and the person who saw the soldiers on the mountain is being dreamseen by the tying-hair-back person at the campfire who listens to the wind. I am the one who observes both in succession.

Ugh, I don't want to be awake. Moocher cat is purring ready for breakfast, and yes the wind is talking a little. I remember that however much social media shrieks, the Professor and Clive and many people I admire lived through much worse than this. War's not close yet, if it ever comes this way at all. I wish it wasn't an issue anywhere, but have to face my own helplessness in the matter. All this is, is being close to klaxons sounding off all the time, infuriating, wracking us into a mass mental health crisis.

Got to fight off that nonsense.

All I can do is enjoy my life right now.

There's much work to do before excellent chum arrives this evening. So I could choose posh perfume that always gets me in the zone for work, or cheerful strawberry scent.

I could really use cheering up.

But work work. I'll feel really cheered up by getting this done.

So posh perfume today, strawberries tomorrow.