Yesterday

Yesterday, which is now the day before, a French girl called me from Germany but I said I was having my photo taken and couldn't help her. I half climbed a set of aluminium step ladders and pretended to read a volume of Moomin cartoons. I thought of skidding on my knees along he dusty wooden floor but instead slowly threw two cardboard boxes printed with my initials into the air. Time moved quickly but contained the correct number of minutes and hours and after a familiar supper we blew on whistles and pulled words out of a wooden bowl that made pictures in our heads and joy in our breaths. Relaxed, we read as the windows sung a wheezing drone till we climbed the stairs to the attic where we slept well until the morning, dreaming of islands forgotten by boats but never by the waves which lap them.