Tomorrow

Tomorrow is only a few moments away now, hiding out there somewhere in the night, at the end of this long cold day. Out there where the sounds of bells ring last orders and figures walk home, haphazardly, while prodding tiny wooden forks into polystyrene boxes full of greasy food.

Tomorrow is out there in the warm breaths, which condense in cold air and the damp streets that lead people home, to lives that all can see, through their open curtains in the night. They steel themselves, upon these small open stages of domesticity, for the next day to come.

Yet tomorrow comes for me too, seen through the glow of headlights which grow brighter behind the frosted glass of the front door of my parents’ home, and through the purring sound of an engine which grows deeper, as a text message arrives, from the driver, to say that his taxi awaits to take me home.

The day ends in an embrace goodbye with a mother called Amy, who has waited with me in silence, never knowing the sadness of my thoughts, which linger upon the cruelty of life. As her hunched, boney shoulders press against mine, my hands rub on the curved spine of a frame which seems to be slowly deflating with each day. I am wishing all the time that I could plug the leak and repair the hole made by time, from which her life seems to be so rapidly escaping from.

So, this tomorrow, my tomorrow, begins with the welling up of tears in my eyes; as the taxi pulls away from her home, thoughts of her slowly ascending the stairs alone to find sleep, in front of a television, fill my mind. Soon, though, the television will have nothing more to say, the Sky Box going to standby with its blank blue screen, the sole survivor in the war against sleep, painting her with the coldness of its glare.

Whilst all of the time her tomorrow waits patiently to find her.