| The Call The sound of the phone from my flatmate’s room catches me on the landing half-way down the stairs, my palm on the handle not enough to still the impetus of the suitcase. It takes a bruise on my thigh to stop it. From the box of things to give away - signs I was once here - I grab my phone, plug it in in the passage, and sit on the stack of phonebooks against the wall. Hallo Mama, I answer. I am leaving for a new place, each further from where I started. Across the seven-hour time difference I fear I will never see her again. I want to say out loud I am losing a centre to which I can return, but do not. She speaks too in a way flattened by what is not said, coming only so close to the parting between us by telling me to leave safely. Across the growing distance I hear her voice receding from me. I make her leave me so I can be still. |
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