Mission

Some things testified of until they left marks on my palms. Sentences and phrases, no longer forms of speech but living breaths of anguish and joy.

Memories attack. Waking me in the morning, crashing suddenly in the afternoon. More vivid than any previous thoughts I’ve had about past events. These ones aren’t yet past. I still breathe British air and maybe (I pray) that I’ll never let the last air molecule escape out of my lungs, so as never to let go. Roundabouts and people’s homes, the way it felt in certain, exact moments. Not exuberant flings of fancy, just flashes of time caught up and still spinning about me. It is in the present. I am still Sister James, unchanged, not gone home, not tossed out of custard, minced meat pie, dandelion and burdock wonderland. Still a castle in the forefront, still sheep and rivers and hedgerows and fantasy book names for the green hills that are constantly playing on some type of never ending rerun in the back of every other less meaningful daily task. I still take the rubbish out in Wales.