Did not open it

Saturday. The shop is busy. I am selling candles to people who do not need them.

Priya is on the till at three. Between sales she says the quiet bit out loud. She says the middle of the set should be a letter to my mum. She says it like she is talking about rain.

I laugh. You know the laugh. The one that means she is dead right and I am not ready.

I walk home past the bus stop on Calvert. I do not go in. I sit at the kitchen table. I do not open the notebook.

I eat leftover curry. I watch the football. I do not write.

Here is the bad bit. I know she is right. I know it in my bones. The letter is the bit. The letter is the whole bit. And I am sat here eating cold rice like a coward because writing it would make it real and I do not want it to be real.

She says it like nothing. Now I cannot stop hearing it.

A grown man, scared of a piece of paper. Pathetic.