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It was the smell of rain that I missed the most and the sound of a lawnmower and the waft of cut grass. It was being out in the open and standing bare foot! Blue skies part and parcel of it all; the thunder that would blast over and leavethe coming of a tropical sundown, an evening of barbecues, of warm pools, beer splattering on concrete. The bed awaiting, a vest, a body glistening from perspiration and a sleep of pillows constantly changing sides, a mosquito in the ear. Sleepless nights that were all you knew. And then, one day I left it behind. I moved to a city, to grim faced pallid movements, and there I became with them a ghost on the sidewalks. Dimly, ambling along with my face down, watching my steps and hurrying towards my quotidian activities. Winters I spent indoor in solace. My flat matesthe friends I hadworked day and night. They were accustomed to leaving the soul behind, the need for money was so official. I would spend nights in the strange house, with creaks of a wall I did not know, and sit by the phone that our landlord had locked, and think of conversations of the past, of my mothers voice ringing, of my best friend whom I would lose contact with, and I would write letters, letters I would never send, letters that clutched the truththat only I knew. I would cry, tears staining the ink, a smudged idea of love. I was temping then, doing mindless data entry, tapping words into a computer, and moving on wondering what worth there was, and how to find it. My flat mates would come home just before midnightMark and Craig, my two best friends. I would smile inwardly and outwardly and make them tea, a sandwich, sit with them and live their lives, hear their stories, flourish in company. Sleep would be eschewed, I yearned for comfort, and company eased the etching of loneliness. | 
