Sunday afternoon…matinee idle

There’s a narcotic, suffocating silence, like being deaf inside a reverberating bell, that heralds the occulting eyelids which, on occasion, accompany my efforts to read in front of a roaring fire on a wet Sunday afternoon. My eyelids are exhausted: that’s the problem. My eyes would be quite happy to continue tracking back and forth across the rows of precise black marks on the white paper but my eyelids have had enough. They seem to have put on so much weight. As the lids slide downwards, closing out the light, so my brain theatre opens for a matinée. The play is as abstract and as full of wonder as ever but strangely forgettable. My eyelids slide open for a short interval while I’m still deeply engaged in the performance but the details stay behind the lids whilst the open eyes struggle to understand the blurred, but faintly familiar, hieroglyphics that have appeared before them: and that particular piece of theatre is lost forever. Perfect Sunday afternoon.