It depends on the light

It is like looking at one of those holograms that you tilt every which way to see both pictures.

A suburban landscape, neatly mowed lawns, trees in bud, faces I have known all or the better part of my life, the backdrop of my childhood. In a flicker it is desolate and devoid of sanguinity. Nothing is as it was.

And yet there is familiarity, reciprocal recognition. It unnerves me where it should comfort. I drive streets unconscious. Restaurants, department stores, the local supermarket; they are all repositories of sentimentality, of treacle-thick memory. I sense that I am an object being tentatively explored with an inquisitive tongue, and I am soon to be spit out. I have the taste of iron in my mouth.

Guilt. Dormant and cancerous. My head becomes light with it when I am showering, and I begin to cry from habit. But I can't, and I remember that for the last two years I have been consumed by a veritable drought and instead I lather myself in milk and honey, and turn the water as hot as I can withstand it. When I step out in to the embrace of a towel that was probably once laundered by my mother, and open the window to release the steam that has engulfed the tiny room, I look out upon another woman plucking at mum's washing line, with another cat weaving between her legs. And again the holographic picture flickers in the mid-afternoon light.

I hate the roles we play. Saturday night I dined with the extended family. I applied more makeup than I usually would, in anticipation of the theatrics. I hate those conversations where people size each other up, compete with one another, their eyes glazed with envy or disregard or confusion. Tug-o-war conversations. I marvel at people who can't hold a conversation about anything other than themselves. I am tired of bearing my soul to people who don't deserve it, revealing I am unsure about what I want to do with my life or even that I need to do anything. Eqully I gag at pretending to be inspired by my job, or that I am hungry for adventure, or desperate to nest and nurture. But I am all smiles and charming and attempt to be stirred by a connection wrought with blood although I know the time is too short to appreciate the essence of any one individual, let alone a crowd. My soul is made quiet with the fear of being boxed, labelled, returned. I feel my eyes pleading with those who sit with me, do they see there is nothing quintessential about me, about all of us, that this performance is cruel and pointless?

It is a fragile game we play.