mobiles, made during a period of interminable solitude twenty years ago when catching the light was an innocent pastime

another sleep-deprived night chez micawber ...

apropos de nuffinque

... this is a second attempt at one i "facebooked" earlier this week

AN ODD CONVERGENCE

I have woken early, immediately known I cannot go back to sleep, and then knowingly gone to the station at Clapham Junction far too early to catch the first train on my journey west.

The coffee shop will not open in time, although nowadays I am not an addict.  So I mope and loiter, on the street and then in the street-level precinct, before proceeding along the deserted passage towards the platform, passing other staircases to other platforms as I go.

At the foot of the very first staircase, a tiny movement “in the corner of my eye” catches my attention.  It is a tiny grey mouse.  I can’t remember the last time I saw one, and so I stop to stare.

How very like a toy mouse.  In the shadows this grey fluffy ball of energy is only just visible, smaller than a table-tennis ball, whizzing to and fro in its state of perpetual hunger, whirring legs out of sight, the long tail held dead straight and horizontal, the eyes mere pinpricks of reflected lamplight.

Footsteps approach in the echoing passage and my reverie is broken.  I become self-conscious about my fascination and turn to leave.

And I find myself face to face with a very pretty bouncy strutting bright-eyed teenager, going home in party clothes.  On her nose she has painted a black spot, and beneath it she has sketched out with mascara some cat’s whiskers.

the boys ...Specimen A and Specimen B