From my notebook 1

The room is hot and stuffy making it hard to sleep.  I open the balcony doors and push my bed as close as I can. A gentle, occasional breeze provides welcome relief. At first I used to worry about mosquitoes and unfamiliar insects, now the passing weeks (and the heat) have inured me to such trivialities. 

I can hear music. Greek and R&B blending, folding, separating like an argumentative couple. Kos keeps late hours.  I lie, half asleep knowing that soon the music and the laughing voices will fade as people make their way home or to the beach to sleep.  Already a few giggling couples have tiptoed noisily down the corridor outside my door.

I sleep.  And when I wake again the sky is black velvet lit by a handful of diamonds.  In the distance a chorus of cats keep up a night time conversation. The air is cooler now and smells of dreams and summer nights.  I pull the sheet over me, to my waist.  Enjoying the crisp feel of it against my skin.  Again I sleep.

This time when I wake the sound of cats calling has been replaced by that of birds chattering. It is the touch of sunlight as it steadily climbs through my window that rouses me. I fetch a new, cold bottle of water from the fridge, light a cigarette and go to sit on the tiny balcony.  There is not much to look at.  The back of the hotel. Flat roofed buildings emerging from the night time shadows.  The whites and creams splashed with blue, softened by the early morning light.

I watch the sky.  Breath in the air that smells and tastes so different from home. And think of nothing. Drifting with the birds into a new day.

Comments

[cat]

Beautifully written! I felt like I was sitting right next to you in Kos.

[Francesca]

Thank you, Cat. I had forgotten that I had written it until I sat glancing through my notebook.