Smoke Zero

Rain falls like a scene change and I’m waking up in an empty field, sashaying ever so slightly on my airbed, scaring dust motes with my whoosh. Smelling smoke, controlling the intake of blue dust through my nostrils, knowing that I have to get up and fast, before the rain stops. It’s dawn. My handbag and portfolio over by Windows in a world of their own, backed by street noise and leaves. I’m rolling up the mattress, feeling for keys in my pocket, all the while listening to that rain, and the occasional sound. There – a bird loop perhaps, a canary caged at a coalface and forced to sing. Rain soft and thudding, like rubber mallets on streetscapes empty of traffic. Moon-drenched and amber rain. Smoky truck-stop rain. Off-screen, a TV bleating football scores into the dim and rain-silenced interior of a saloon. Television rain.