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Just Before Dawn Graham Burchell Houston |
At the point of wakening there was room for one more dream. Vapours were whispering around congested holes in his head. From blue glass, a viscous salve imbued with eucalyptus, had been scooped, melted into fire-boiled water in a clumsy white bowl. His suffering head sagged under a tent of grandma’s rough towels, white, striped with faded mint and rose, smelling more of her than gum trees. He knew koalas feed on stiff leaves of eucalyptus. Because he knew, he expected them to expel breath of Vic’s Vapor Rub, to ingest it into their milk… * The bridge of his nose clouted the rim of his coffee mug. There was warmth, close vapours and a lance of embarrassment. He sat up in the Hopper diner. He breathed in the scene; low-key breakfast aromas, maple syrup and toast. A lone waitress, blousy under a rattle of dark curls, was oblivious. An elderly black couple near the exit were too busy with family laughter. Outside it was hanging on to night. Magnesium white lights lit puddles and the roofs of trucks. As he struggled to remember, his grandmother appeared. He was fifty-six years old And his grandmother approached as if coming from her kitchen; one she had inhabited thousands of miles away, but not for twenty years. She looked so well: make up fresh and light. Her hair set in ripples of her era. She wore a long fur coat and hat, Not as he recalled: a housecoat, and a cigarette dangling from her lips with a length of ash defying gravity. “Hallo Gray,” she said. She drifted towards him, unfazed by surroundings so foreign. “When are you coming to join us?” Tears melted the outlines of his eyes. Questions stuck at the back of his throat. “Soon enough,” he croaked, “but not just yet. I still have so much to do.” Graham Burchell [Return to Psychopoetica home page] ©The contents of this page are copyright protected.
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