The Senses

I can see: my keyboard, a little grubby, I note. Dust and stuff between the keys. It needs cleaning. A hastily scribble telephone number on a scrap of white paper – belonging to? No idea. There’s a red-and-white airways envelope from Tahiti, where a friend is doing a six month residential course in air traffic control. The postcard it contained is up above the computer screen: Moorea, looking temptingly idyllic. My mouse is flashing red – AGAIN – informing me that it wants more batteries. I must get hold of a charger and rechargeables. There’s a coffee mat with a sepia illustration of Bolingey, Cornwall which was a gift from my dad last time we visited. A half-empty cylindrical case of blank CDs, a rubber (eraser, if that made you smile) a permanent marker, a diary and a wad of A4 paper make up the ensemble that is my desktop. Oh and photographs, of my daughter, my son, my wife and I.

I can feel: the pain in my back, my shoulders, my neck. Omnipresence. It is occupying more and more of me. As I concentrate, I can sense also a mild tingling in my fingertips, and of course the pressure as each key is hit. A trickle of sweat begins its journey down my back. As the fan reaches the edge of its arc, a brief respite of cool air reaches the left side of my head and body. And then there’s the pain in my back, my shoulders, my neck…

I can hear: the determined gurgling of my son downstairs as he attempts, for what might be the hundredth time this morning, to reach my guitar. The chatter in the street from the four guys squatting outside the house opposite, drinking iced coffee and playing Chinese chess. A delivery bike arrives and reloads. The strains of Bach, oddly enough, coming from somewhere way behind the house. And now a taxi, struggling to squeeze passed the bikes parked outside and resorting to his horn. Padlocks being unlocked and a metal grating opening. And someone spitting loudly. A Vivaldi Concerto as Windows Media Player accompanies my writing. The soft falling of rain, the tail end of a deluge.

I can taste: the memory of the carrot and ginger juice I made myself ten minutes ago. And a metallic dryness, probably from medication which does I know not what to me besides alleviating pain.

I can smell: hmm, my weak suit. Not much really. It raining, but I’m aware of it through the noise, not the smell. Now I think of the rain, I imagine I can smell it. Maybe.