Four Hundred Words

I found this website I thought looked interesting. What do you think?

Friday, 03 June 2005

I woke early to the sound of car engines driving through my sleep. Then the rubbish lorry pummelling down the street. Then clattering of metal on kerbstones, metal on the metal lip of the lorry and men shouting instructions above the roar of the engine.

Then hard sunlight pours through the blinds.

I’m restless. So I turn over again. My wife is asleep beside me. She had a bad night. She struggled with a sleeplessness for two hours. Put the light on and read for a while. Turned over and over.

We are waiting. Our days slip by.


Thursday 2 June 2005

There is an uneasy restlessness. A tightness that fills the air, it’s been here in the house, hanging around our lives for weeks now. It is unsettling. The children feel it too. My daughter will cry about something unimportant but won’t be able to stop, not for ages. My son has developed lots of routines – little things – like the way he wraps his bathrobe tightly around him and ties it with a cord it looks a little obsessive.

I often wake at four and slip uneasily in and out of sleep till six. I’ve had a few headaches recently too.


Sunday, 29 May 2005

This Sunday my daughter is in a Gymnastics competition this morning and my son is at a football birthday party this afternoon. I’ve just heard my daughter has won joint first place for her age group. I feel very proud and have dashed out to buy her flowers, a card and cake to celebrate later.

But I feel heavy like lead. I’m burning inside, something is eating away at me. I could give myself up to tears but if I do that I won’t be able to pick up my son from his party or my daughter from the competition.


Saturday 28 May 2005

I said goodbye to some students yesterday. It was the last time I’ll see many of them again. They were a great class. I felt good and excited every time I closed the door behind me and began to take the register. I’d look up to friendly, smiling and attentive faces and for three hours every week of the academic year we’d just play with words.

We played with Hamlet and an anthology of American poetry in the first year and this year we played with Othello, The Tempest, Translations by Brian Friel, and lots more poetry. I’ll miss them.