Published 'Sierra Heaven' 1998
Too late to pretend I'm not writing something. He's spotted me with a pen for one thing and, not only that, sporting a piece of paper on my lap over which the said pen seems to be moving in tandem with my hand. I can't even depend on the distance between him and me to blur the distinction of writing or drawing or - what else? - scribbling, doodling, fashioning figures, tabulating, sketching, cross-hatching...
No, he can see I am allowing a language, of sorts, to be trailed evenly across the paper. As yet however, he must be uncertain as to its subject-matter or whether, indeed, I'm pretending to write words whilst actually perpetrating nonsense.
Although he is convinced as to the meaningfulness with which I wield language - judging the evident concentration upon my brow - he still fails to give me the benefit of the doubt.
He is now looking over my shoulder, I guess, making me shudder. I can feel him breathing, stirring the hackles on my neck. I sense his eyes upon the business tip of my pen trying to trace a foreign template which none of us can predict, whilst inferring a message from the very semaphores it eventually imprints. Pause. But he's still there. Nothing to see, mate. I've already stopped writing. Perhaps he'll go away now, due to the stock of words having been expended. No concentration left. No concentration right. Only his pinpointing the centre, pricking the heart of things - forever concentrating upon that erstwhile pause.
