The afternoon air is sleepy and cool. I am fighting to
keep my concentration, not to let my focus slip. Today is making up for other
days of procrastination and digression. The computer hums, the phone rings, the
words fly and the task list shortens. I am coasting along in my tiny world of
order, achievement and calm. A cloud of self satisfied smugness surrounds me.
Then, with crashing, a rumbling and a torrent of laughter and words, the kids
rush up the stairs from the school bus. The cupboard doors bang and the fridge
door swings wide as two hot bodies push for access to whatever is on offer. The
television is switched on at full volume, bags are thrown, crumbs are left and
in a gradually decreasing flurry of activity they retreat to their rooms, a
bedraggled line of possessions in their wake. Now the piano starts in one room
and the voice excersises in the other. The television is still blaring,
unwatched. I switch it off as the phone starts ringing again, this time not for
me. I put work on hold until tomorrow, or later tonight or whenever I find my
concentration again.
This is an afternoon in my house
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