Night Side of the River

Royal Geographical Society 1865 – named after the Surveyor General of India, Sir George Everest. To his credit he objected – said it couldn’t be written or pronounced in Hindi.

Humans can see less than 1 per cent of the electromagnetic spectrum. We call this visible light. We can’t see radio waves, gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light. We manage just fine; our mistake is to rename visible light – what we can see – as reality.

There were patterns in the fog, spirals of intent on the point of leaving a message, then swept away. This ghostly calligraphy had a forlornness to it, as though the Dead were trying to tell us something they could not tell, as though language had floated away from meaning, leaving behind only signs, whispers, gestures.

I like looking back into rooms filled with people. I like the silent-movie feel of it. I used to do it when I was a girl, watching my parents and sisters, knowing they couldn’t see me. Now, in the crisp, starry air, I looked in and saw my party, my friends, laughing, animated. I smiled to myself. This is what it means to have friends; this ease, th

Back home, we had no inside bathroom. The toilet was in the yard next to the coal-shed. Both were full of black spiders, which wasn’t the spiders’ natural colour. Everything in the 1960s was coal-washed.

Can you believe he’s still alive, in a bungalow, in Bournemouth? I’ve been to visit him, made a few things happen – ectoplasm, electrical failures, horrible noises in the night. He’s so stupid he doesn’t notice. He’ll be dead soon and then I’ll make his life hell.’

On the walk together, we experienced the phenomenon that lovers who are not yet lovers recognise; they are not touching, yet they feel the charge. The space in between is filled with energy. The spark. The dance. The movement. The wave and particle that is everywhere and nowhere, because nothing else is. The strangeness of that early time is common

I want you to come back to me in your strong, safe body. I want to lie down with you without the fear of waking alone. I want to fall asleep with my back turned towards you. I want to feel your hand against my shoulder blades in the ambient warmth of our bed. Our bed. My friend says I should get a new mattress.

As I come apart, remember less, know less, am less, my life isn’t flashing before me, it’s fading. I am a light out at sea. I am a star disappearing at dawn. I am trying to follow myself and I can’t. One thing is clear – whatever death is, it isn’t a continuation of self – myself – in the way I imagined my lived-life to be. Self seems like it’s a s