from A Book of Hours: From Aidoneus to Zeus

from A Book of Hours: From Aidoneus to Zeus

from A Book of Hours: From Aidoneus to Zeus

22.30 h.

     The dilemma of the people who are unaware that it is night. They have something to say to themselves: some kind of question.
     The steps taken by the people who wish to begin to be aware that it is night.
     Pyjamas: put them on and move about in them. That unaccustomed feeling of breath: the body has that, not tied in at the waist as it is during the day. The shoulders collapse with gratitude.
     So: the feeling of relief: is that the reminder of night? No: self-forgetting, that is gradual; relief is no constant reminder of night.
     You cannot go outside.
     Think, then, of taking the lights off.
     Toe nudges towards switch, the black plastic ridges of switch discreet on the floor, spade-shaped foot, barely calloused.
     Still from the street the amber glow, a terrace of houses stuck together by the sounds of putting-away. The day is being put away.
     Honey! Is that night?
     It’s not right.
     The steps retraced by the people who put the lights back on because it is no use that it is night.
     Think, then, of those places where there are no lights. No lights, nothing at all; and the sounds, they do not sound as if they can be put away, this is it, this night, territorial absolute, it is not the brief interval before day advancing.
     No! They don’t count. It’s as if they exist in a time slip – those places; they’re as good as –
     The dilemma of the people who