Anyone? No? Dust.

I’ve made it home, but for how long? Twenty-four hours, perhaps. If that. I hang my coat next to the door, and as soon as I do this I am at an absolute loss for what to do. Like any sense of direction I may have once had evaporated as soon as that coat was lifted off my shoulders.

My bedroom is exactly as it was when I left it. How long ago was that? I was never good with time, I sweep my days under carpets and somehow am surprised to find myself feel old. I sit down in front of my computer; that old, dusty, noble machine. On the noticeboard behind the screen, a polaroid of you.

It was a lifetime ago. Who even uses polaroid cameras these days? You thought technology was a means of shortcuts, of cheating. Old cameras are more honest, you’d argue. Everything you get – the spontaneity, the mistakes, the beauty. It’s just...honest. You handwrote thank-you letters and only befriended those who lived within a bike ride of you.

In this particular photo you are laughing. These were the days of smiles and nervous butterflies. You are wearing a sun hat and a summer dress, unknowingly a splash of ice cream on your nose. Ten seconds after I take this photo of you, you discover the ice cream. Strawberry. Always your favourite. You yell at me and try to wrestle the photo out of my hands, still laughing. I know the motions of this memory well.

I throw the photo in the bin. How are photos ever honest? They’re like watching your favourite soap out of one pixel on a television screen. They can mean anything, but they’re honest because they’re tainted by memory. What utter bullshit.

I want to check my e-mail, but there’s no point. You never used computers, and who do I write these days? I leave the computer on and walk to the kitchen. Everything has kept, because everything is canned. I’m the direct opposite of your everyday beauty and local markets, aren’t I?

I pick up the phone. I know your number by shape, not by digits. But my phone has been disconnected, and potentially for the best. Technology does always tend to know what’s good for us, after all. I leave the phone hanging, the dull tone filling the silence of the room slowly, like smoke.

I leave the house. I climb inside my old car, also dusty.

Everything in my life is dust.

So I drive.