Today is the first set of moments after intense pain. These little bits of time are bubbles in a field and each pearly globe contains some effluvia, some exhalation of illness. They burst occasionally, and I waft through the miasma, but mostly today has been the mild haze-pain of the field itself, the bubbles remain largely at a distance, beautiful and alien. The world feels like it is an iridescent garden whose main fruit is inedible.

And it’s hot. So here at the coffee shop sitting in what shade is available, there is a thin skin of sweat on my nose and upper lip. The combination is almost ecstatic. If I move wrong the pain re-members and I feel as if I have been lifted and simultaneously flattened into something resembling a Mary Callery statue.

And tomorrow I am supposed to return to work.