It's cold in my council flat.
I haven't had very much money these past few weeks and so the heating has been switched off. I have plenty of duvets and blankets though, and if I wear three jumpers over the top of each other I can make it across the hallway to the toilet without feeling the draught from the broken window in the back bedroom. Kids messing about on the street, the council tell me they will send someone around but so far there has been no knock at my door. It has been over a month now.
The electric is still on though, and when my next disability check comes through I have promised myself an electric heater for these cold nights alone in the dark with just the ticking of the old rusty carraige clock as company. The infrequent midnight traveller zooms past my window and I sit alone, always alone.
It is raining hard outside and the lighning flickers ghosts of my past onto the dark walls. The streetlights have gone out again, the third time since this spring storm began. I watch as the rain distorts the outside world and roll myself a cigarette from my tobacco tin. My fingers are stiff from the cold so my cigarette is not as tight as I usually like it to be. No matter though. I lean forward and light the tip of my rollie with the single candle flame that illuminates my writing. This is the first thing I have written since high school and, if I am honest, it feels a bit strange, creating these markings and squiggles that will be determined by others as language. Some words escape me now, but as I continue I'm sure they will come back.