Lights. Camera…

You wouldn't want a camera trained on that mooning, the goatee scratching, scanning of walls & ceilings, piano fingers stretched and poised over the pad. Crazy, but you do indeed twitch a little when the gaze falls on the darkened window downstairs. Might someone possibly peer in from the garden, spying the behaviour? Combing moustaches either side with thumb and forefinger; lost staring. Would be every bit as bad as being caught straining on the throne, with the bathroom door open perfectly visible from the kitchen window. Circling of the floor had started, classic pacing like in the cells in books & movies, minimising the creaking so the neighbour wouldn’t hear. You couldn't fight your way outta a brown paper bag—the schoolyard taunt given a whole new meaning now. No end in sight either, other than the inescapable. Talking on the phone out of the void needed more serious effort again; luckily few persisted with it, the messaging and mailing regime more or less accepted. And all that within the raked ceilings, wood grained walls (albeit particle laminate), a pair of roof windows and others looking front & back onto leafy green. The bicycle remained the saviour, bringing down by the glassworks to the river, from where the bay, the mangroves and then up along the creek. Inland the garden or park options would offer far less. This afternoon a young magpie had come down onto a post on the dock at the fishing village and stood a few minutes almost within touching distance, casting over the water. Twitching its head one way and the other. Not really the domain of the maggie there; perhaps it had become confused somehow and lost its way. As it continued the challenge arose to catch the instant before the taking wing. Prior to flight there ought have come a short visible spasm, an intake of breath beneath the feathers, if nothing else; flexing of feet or pulse in the breast. One minute, followed by a second of close observation from the post one side, and the bench the other. There was nothing, birdie simply rising up a little way and letting the wind carry it back over the top of the fisherman's shed toward the upper creek. Before the last set of pushes in the evening prior to supper it was always with a pang that the front window onto the lemon was swung shut. Low cloud behind the houses, the darkened street less dreary than usual and a light stir of air shuttered away. Every fortnight the woman adjacent struggled getting the glass recycle out onto the street for collection. They would wonder about their neighbour doing without these many months. Luckily they appeared not to be nosy parker types.