The smell of smoke

She trudged up the steps to the door of her flat. The expanse of black window above stared impassively back at her and she let the straining plastic bag drop onto the door mat while she fumbled underneath her many clothing layers for the key.

The door swung back and although the air that drifted from within was warm and thawed her numb face, the loneliness seeped from the shadows to chill her heart. She felt desperately bleak. She had never had the warmth of a close family, jumbling on top of one another, shouting at each other, jostling for space. She told herself that it would be anathema to her anyway but she wasn't sure she believed it. What she really just wanted was to hear a voice, one voice, calling her name, asking her how she was, how had her day been, the usual fatuous nothings that make life. She wanted the light to be on once, just once, a welcoming beam behind the glass and the joy of seeing a smile behind the light. If she could, for a moment, smell woodsmoke she might know that inner lightness that the fire meant home.

But the longer it went, the more cold she became or seemed, more acerbic, bitter, and thus she remained, with the darkness behind the door.


Time up.

I was thinking about what to write tonight when I was out on my walk this evening. I smelt woodsmoke and I thought I'd write about that. But then I saw something from a twitter post about 'not having a shoulder to cry on' and I thought about the feeling one might have it one were lonely. In my existence, I've never been alone and I often think how lovely it would be to have total freedom. Then I see things like that and it gives me pause, enough to appreciate the noise and madness that surrounds me.