Whispers and Wanderings

image created by MS Copilot In our hotel room, the curtains hang, like two orange sentries guarding us from the world that lies beyond the glass. The air in the room is still and they stand steady and resolute. As Claire sits on the bed reading her book, I am still. Gazing at the stark white ceiling, my thoughts are a mix of the week that has passed and of the day we have spent here in the ancient city of Valletta. I hold my coffee cup as it warms my hand, though my thoughts are such that I’ve forgotten to drink the brown liquid it contains. I take a sip and the bitterness as I swallow, brings me back to the present. Music hums from my phone. It is not so loud as to distract Claire from her book, but just enough to seep through into my thoughts as Lady Gaga invites me to consider if I'm "happy in this modern world? ....or is there something else I'm searchin' for?" Beyond the door, the small enclosed balcony feels like a threshold; a no man's land, an inbetwee...

Claire and I were sitting in the kitchen when we heard the mirror fall that morning. It never reached the floor but slid from the wall and lodged itself behind the sofa, tilted and breathing, as if the house had changed its mind halfway through. The surface of the mirror didn’t shatter – it remained whole, held there at an awkward angle, reflecting only the narrow strip of the white wall it faced. The black glass beads that had once adorned it were fragmented and lay scattered like tiny jewels on the sofa cushion – never again to be whole. I didn’t know it then but, just like that mirror, my life was about to change forever. My Dad, already ill by then, was being cared for at home by my sisters. I had been there the night before, finishing my weekend shift beside him. It had been challenging; Dad wasn’t eating or drinking. He was distressed, and we had struggled to secure the medical support he needed in the days after his impromptu and somewhat surprising discharge from hospital. Afte...