This is my place, my gloomy corner, where I have sat since we came here. I came in a time of transition, of change, of breakdown and disappointment; the dust was stirred up into a suffocating, muddled cloud. I have sat whilst the dust of my detritis (-itis, medical term for an itchy inflammation - I cannot scratch this one), the dust of my detritis slowly settled, thin layer on thin layer, slowly letting me breath. I sit here safe in my corner from the taunts and shouts and stares of the neighbours. I sit here shackled for my own good, for the beast stirs within me and my sedantary lifestyle sedates the beast. The shackles slow my progress, so I might as well just sit here.
Three and a half years ago we decided I should get a part-time job. Each day I am unfettered for a few hours, I feel light and free. My co-workers do not know about the beast ~ how could they be so blind ~ and treat me as a valued colleague and friend. Then I return home to be ball-and-chained.
Suddenly we are leaving. We are going to a much better place, to God's Cradle. I have always loved it there, but they do not tolerate sinners. I have not sinned ~ and Jesus loved sinners ~ but I am frightened.
Now everything is being moved, rearranged, packed away. The dust swirls and rises again, obscures the light, stinks. It is my dust. In moving it is all disturbed again, raked up, everything from all my years past in a confusing, overpowering, overshadowing great swirl and I am choking, choking, I cannot breath.