An uncommon April

I have previously recorded how much I dislike flying. Well, my trip into Baltimore has done nothing to correct this flaw in my character. We came in against the end of a “class b” hurricane that is still whipping around my room up on the 16th floor of the Fayette Sheraton. A 767 bouncing on the air 5 miles above the air is not a place you want to be for any length of time. Beyond the general hum of anxiety surrounding the possibility of crashing, my mind frays and sparks with such unwelcome, torrid thoughts of pain and torture and loss and grief for every person that I love or have loved.

I land in tatters and wander into newspaper coverage of the likely execution in Gaza of a journalist, the rampage of killing in Virginia, the lousiness of American coffee and the never ending squall of sirens. My wife’s voice is distant on the phone, and the size of food portions does physically scare me!

White folks are very polite, and black folks are doing all the dirty work. You can’t move without someone wanting to earn small change from it. Eggs have no yolks and are served in litre cartons, and everyone politely ignores the reek of naked craven ambition steaming from their nearest neighbours. Everyone seems to nod at the weather, the fallen scaffolds, the fleeing garbage, the helpless birds and say, “It is, if you will, an uncommon April”

If I sleep now I may have the strength to wake and face… it.

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