Flashing.

We're trying really hard. Pulling and tugging at belts, and the weird strings that hang down from the insides of jackets. The ones with the toggles.

What a word!

She'd say.

Moving around the apartment, dashing between tiny rooms - an expanse of different piles; laundry, books, unopened mail- hurridly dragging hats over heads, and doing up laces and gloving hands and thinking:

What are we forgetting?

And already running late, always already running late. And throwing food into the bowl for the cat, and tying up plastic bags. We're unplugging the phones, but only so that they'll fit inside our pockets and we're doing our best to water the plants.

We're not sure if we're wearing the right thing. We have no idea what the right thing would be.

Last minute changes are being made. Up instead of down, or even pulled to the side. Red or Blue? I am sweeping crumbs, and hair, and litter from the tray, into a dustpan. We're checking we have our keys.

We stop for a second in the doorway, stare ourselves up and down, and I kiss her square on the forehead and she smells the part that's behind my ear. The part of your head you can't ever really see. Even in a room full of mirrors. That we'd be using for adjusting our collars and necklaces, and rolling up our jeans.

Bruce Lee running late for another dinner.