Remembering Reality

Sometimes it’s like playing a piano, the words are music coming out of your fingers and there is no time for the brain to trip you up and decide a sensible direction. Sometimes there is just the letters coming out on the screen. I open my eyes to the brightness of red branches, growing from trees so pollarded they are now alien creatures. The sun illuminates the church with its copper green tower, against a drama filled backdrop of dark grey sky. Closer is the old yew tree that I have tried so many times to feature in short stories, with never any success, that it now waves at me through my window, forlorn, an uncastable actor, full of character but too complex to be believable. Closer still are the telephone wires, secret carriers, and then the dangle of out-of-focus hairs, scruffing over my vision.
   The curve of my back, tension in my neck and teeth. An itch on my nose, probably caused by those floating hairs. Citrus and peppermint tea breath; far pleasanter and politer than my earlier coffee fumes. My fingers hunting for the correct keys, I’m not the best touch typer, but proficient enough not to get impatient for the words to spill onto the screen.
   The whir of my laptop, the squirl from my stomach, soon it will be time to eat. My dog stretching and changing position, the hum of the ever angry bathroom fan. Irritable cars accelerating and slowing for our street’s string of speed bumps.
   Breathe. Citric on the sweet spectrum, nothing as sharp or classy as the tang of lemon. Taste is tricky so I glug down tea. Cooling peppermint, stewing bag; leaving the mouth woken and the throat warmed. That is me, right now, not using my creation station, but just recording reality.