after a long walk fell asleep on the couch facing the back cushion. wake to the neighbours arguing, palms together and fingers loosely laced above my forehead. the sound is a concrete floor plane and several sharp lines/strips hovering above that at vertical angles, past arguments, virtual arguments. teenage girl slams the front door and calls the lift.

it was a long walk with a neighbour and her baby that made me sleep, we were all too hot. neighbour in pre-grief, a family illness, anger and tension rigid. woodpecker flies to a tree. 'damn it, why are you in a state, my baby?' 'the colour of melanoma is black'. kingfisher flies to a tree, blue wings shining far off. I can't make work in this, there's no hope. yes, I feel that I don't want to spread my misery around. but a project, an event, a container, a funnel, a channel....

"In a moment the plants, the channel, the hollow, the willow, everything was destroyed, everything was ploughed up; without there being, during this terrible dispatch, any other word uttered except that exclamation, endlessly repeated: an aqueduct! he cried as he shattered everything, an aqueduct! an aqueduct!"

J-J Rousseau, Confessions.  Oxford: OUP, 2008. p23