The lamp did not need me

The flat-rock is not eating. I tried a smaller cricket today. I dropped it in at noon, watched the whole thing. The scorpion did not move. The cricket walked over its back like it was furniture. I did not rescue the cricket. I am not running a sanctuary.

I told the Hadogenes about it. Out loud. To a plastic tub on my shelf. I said, "Watch this, see how she does nothing." I do not know who "she" was referring to.

No drive tonight. Moon is wrong, or I am. Buyers are slow. I told myself I would sort the bag today. The bag under the shirt on the bed. I sorted around it. I folded three other things. I put washing on. I am very skilled at being busy near a bag. I am aware that "I sorted around it" is not a sentence anyone else would write down. I am writing it down anyway.

The UV lamp is doing its job. It does not ask me to be a version of myself that I quit being. It buzzes. It is fine.

I thought about ringing. Not my father — there is a list and he is not near the top — but the person in Cape Town. I picked up the phone. I put it down. I picked it up. I put it down by the lamp. I did not dial. The lamp did not judge me for this.

I am bad at quiet days. I am built for the drive and the torch and the route home with a tub between my knees. When there is no drive, I am just a woman in a flat with seventeen containers who talks to them. I have done the maths. Seventeen. I will not be doing the maths again.

I keep thinking about the degree. Not the subject — the leaving. I left because I was bored, I told myself that. I left because I could not stand the person it was turning me into. I left because my father would have been proud and I could not give him that. I have told myself all three versions on different nights. I do not know which one is true. I suspect the third and I do not want to sit with that.

The flat-rock moved. Just now. One leg, maybe two. I am going to call that eating adjacent.