I am roused from a fitful
sleep by the sound of breakers on the shoreline. As consciousness returns I realise that I hear the crashing waves of her touch-typing. From
under the duvet I can see her calves; her toes press invisible piano pedals. The printer whirrs, birthing a sheet, and I imagine her dandling an A4 infant on her knee.
Abruptly her feet disappear from my viewpoint and I hear them padding away; the door swishes and she is gone.
She leaves a busy emptiness in the room, a tangible absence. It's as though the molecules in all the places she has been are agitated; they are still vibrating in sympathy to her energetic presence, even though she has gone.
Looking around, my eyes are drawn to the spaces she recently occupied, the chair where she sat, the hole in the air she made as she slipped through the door.
After a while, I start to feel oppressed by the noisy silence of these ghosts and I follow her trail of lucid after-images. When I catch up with her, it's a relief to discover her alone, frowning over a painting, talking to herself and not to her shadows.