Solitude

It’s something they carry with them – explorers  night shifts  seamen – like a good pair of binoculars or a camera case perfectly and deeply compartmented. It has a quiet patina that both absorbs and reflects like a valuable instrument you have to sign for – contract with alone – and at the end of the voyage you get to keep. Sometimes it’s very far away. Sometimes so close at first you think the person next to you is picking up  putting down a personal cup a book in another language before you realise what – when talk has moved off leaning its arms on someone else’s table – is being handed to you.