It was a rainy spring day. The damp chill ate through to my bones. The trees on the other side of the glistening window glowed green like a firefly dipped in Absinthe. The musty smell of fresh dirty was stifled only by the sickeningly sweet lilac scent pouring from a candle. I wrapped myself in the heavy afghan that my mother had made for her mother. The yarn had turned rough, like burlap, over the years, but the bold golds, browns and burnt oranges brought the lump on the chocolate suede couch that was me to life. The clouds dimmed my room but artificial light is so taboo, so I sat in the darkness, sipping velvety cocoa, and read . . . something.

Don’t ask me why I don’t remember what I was reading. It was one of those books that you remember liking, but can’t recall what it was about. If you ask me to describe it, I will be forced into the uncomfortable telling of “This guy went to this place with a person and did something”. You can make that sound as dirty as you like, but for the life of me I don’t know if it was a guy with another guy committing murder or a guy with a gal making love. Hell, maybe it was all vice versa, vis a vis and quid pro quo. Yada, yada, yada . . .