We are unsettled with us

I know we are unsettled with us. The life we lead is too much in the light. And then the hands we have, look at them. We know each line, each growing wrinkle. And then our commerce with ourselves - observe, how we know it all - each joke, each sad memory, each corner of our minds.

I told you yesterday to seek out someone and you did. And you invited to our table a new creature. What shall we call him? He looked pleased with himself. He was a hungry shifty bright-eyed unfeeling floating person. I saw him. I did not speak with him. I wanted to see what he could do. And he did much. He did not seem capable of friendship. Friendship does not devour. And, frankly, I thought his humour acerbic and unsavoury, not quite the kind we share. But he was different. And he did things.

And then, it was refreshing. After all we have been unsettled and cramped in our little space. There's you with your brooding against the wall, there's him with his dialectics at the desk, and him with his contemplative cover on the bed, and him with his cunning at the window, and him with his memories frantically rummaging through the cupboards, and him with his keen eye and twitching fingers fixing the eisel, and him with his tireless ambitions - cleaning washing fixing mending making, and then, there's that keeper of rhythms and songs who walked off the roof some nights back and will not return.

It's been a crowded place with us. And maybe we need to get ourselves a new home. A larger one. And call a few more faces to run the show.

It's like having just one story and one script for a million nights. When you are done with the reading, you know you cannot change the words. But you hope - sitting on the fan, dangling your legs, looking down with curiousity - that maybe the story will tell you something of the gardens and the cities outside, if only you screwed a new face into the reader's neck, a new pair of hands into his shoulder sockets and a new set of lips that will whisper in a new tongue.

What do we do now AJ?

You know, AJ, the second innings is often more difficult than the first. So as we walk out to the middle, with the stadium buzzing with expectation, and as we survey the field spread out around us, what do we do?

Do we think of what is expected of us? Do we think of what we should do or not do to stay there -at the wicket - a little longer? Do we think of how we'd deal with the red cherry that will zip past our ears? Do we think runs? Do we think of the bowler who licks his lips with anticipation?

Or do we feel the white flannel on our skin, smell the willow, see the sun soak up the green, smile, grimace, screw up our eyes, and take guard?