A day like any other. Summertime with its unbearable heat which I love, and the new academic year had just begun. Class was as unexciting as always, and I sat with my head to one side, a half-smile giving away that I was certainly interested in something. But it was not guerrilla warfare or colonisation in all their fascinating tactics that had me engrossed. Even I was not sure exactly what it was, but there was an intangible thing or thought that had taken my mind gently by the hand and led me away to a far more beautiful place. I scribbled mindlessly on blank paper, words and music and images streaming from me like an unstoppable flow of blood. It all made no sense at all until years later when we looked back and comprehended for the first time just what we were back now.
We strolled outside at the sound of quarter-to, our hands shooting straight to our skew fringes to block out the sun. It was mercilessly bright, but at the same time it was more dull than usual. The countryside had been burning for days on end and even those we thought could help were seemingly powerless, perhaps useless, in clearing the air. It lay thick and low, like a person hovering over our shoulders, breathing into our ears with stale breath. We waited for it to end or spread to our doorsteps. Until then we brushed soot off our shoulders and tried to continue as we always did, while we breathed in flakes of ash and coughed up blood for the earth’s burning skin.
A normal day, as any other, except that we could see nothing.
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