R's rue

Normally I sleep like a log - often for seven or eight unbroken hours - but this morning I came back to wakefulness just after four thirty. I had things on my mind and felt a strange sense of loss mingled with uncertainty, irritation and regret. Not a helpful recipe for getting back to sleep. Consequently, I got up and crept downstairs for a mug of tea and two ginger biscuits. I have the television on but the sound is turned off. Game wardens in Africa are craning an elephant on to a flat bed truck. I wonder where they are taking her? It must be for her own good. Now she is coming off the truck. She has been heavily sedated. Now she is waking up in a big steel truck. It's like a prison cell on wheels. Maybe I will never know where she was going because the wildlife programme has switched to a parallel story about penguins on the South African coast. Are there any black people in Africa? This programme suggests not.  All the humans in the camera's gaze are earnest whites. W...

 I’ve talked of serendipity a great deal on Going Gently  over the past two years . It’s a phenomenon that has swing into my life like the pendulum of a great clock And like a good clock, it’s presence has been timely. Last night’s shift was a busier one than normal. I was knackered afterwards , and when I had breakfast this morning, I ate left over coriander salad with chicken out of the side of my mouth as I leaned sleepily across the kitchen table still in my uniform I looked down at Dorothy who was licking her lips from her position in Winifred’s arm chair and told her to bugger off  “Its  been an emotionally  tiring week!” I told her, but unlike Winnie she didn’t understand my words and just looked guilty. Winnie would have nodded benignly and would have mew mewed me a kiss. I was in bed only ten minutes before a rather gorgeous delivery driver knocked on the door The box was large and contained a standard rose for the garden. The roses depicted...

  By Bryce Cameron Liston  from Going Gently https://ift.tt/346C9Xd