white space

It's not a hangover. I didn't drink enough for that. There's no pain or sense of displacement. Just a touch of weariness and discontent with working all day. 

I find it's days like this I want to write. I want to write everyday, obviously. But days like this in particular I miss just writing. No stealing a sentence here and there, in the midst of pretending to do a job. No looking at my desk at the end of a long day and ignoring it, killing the guilt of not writing with a glass of wine and Scrubs reruns. No excuses. An espresso, a cup of tea, a pint of water and the endless patter of the keyboard. The screen filling with words, white space consumed by more and more black characters. Looking at my word count, knowing my place, the story's place, and knowing when my day's work was done. Not looking at a clock and longing for time to speed up. 

The sun's been around a wee while now. New flip-flops, old shorts and t-shirts and my summer uniform's in place. There's a chill in the shadows though. A bitterness when the sun slips behind a cloud. Tendrils of sea mist, the haar, drift in from the water, cooling the sun-soaked streets. Folk hug themselves and wish they'd brought jumpers, jackets, anything. They feel deceived as the sun turns into a silver disc, veiled in the fog. 

It doesn't come until after lunch, the haar. Sitting on the beach with a bottle of whisky as the sun rises in the east. Maybe a beer or two. The sky's clear then, as the fiery disc rises from the water in the distance. It's all the clarity to be had, and I drink it in with the whisky, with the beer. The tendrils of mist are yet to come.

I'm not hungover. I'm not even tired.  Just a little weary, and a little discontent.