Islands

What is splendid isolation?

I am drinking tea and the residue that remains is alone. Alone as residue. Is it tea anymore? Does it even look like tea?

In the shower cubicle there is steam. I cannot see and grope my way towards the towel. The steam evaporates and blurred lines run down the glass like tears on cheeks. The towel dries me; it is now soaked with my wetness. Is that wetness mine or of the shower? Or of the source of the water? Imagine a blurred crying line on glass cannot be isolated from the rivers and seas.

I look in the cupboard and find a dress. New. Magenta. Purple trimming. The sleeves a wispy material. You can see my arms through them. But they are now arms covered with transparent gauze. It is a bit strange. They do not cover but hint at the existence of arms. Are the sleeves in need to belong or do they fear clinging? The arms look like they are not with the rest of the body; the rest of the body is covered with fabric that has modest lining. The body is covered with skin. Who is isolated from whom here?

Notes are spread out before me. I scratch on the pages that are itching, itching with an insect bite. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Words. Non-words. Signs. Punctuation marks. The page tears. There is a hole and the pen touches the table. Everything is removed from the other and yet thoughts are brought to the table! I smile like I always do – slowly, but it reaches the eyes. If it does not I retract the smile, back into its shell. The fragile shell where you can break in and even rob it. I fear those moments. But then I pluck out a cloud from the sky and twist it this way and that and there is the crescent moon behind. A smile. Alone. Splendid.

I am waiting. For nothing. I mean, I am waiting for something but I do not know what that something is. Unless I know it, it will remain unfamiliar and unattainable. But the wait is palpable, like holding breath.

Is this splendid isolation?