abscence is taken for granted.

and the radio controlled clock on the wooden window sill alarm sounds its daily five ay em alarm.

sit up, press that button. And then the other one, turn off the compressor and take down the mask,  away from its nasal perch, and put it on the table.

Relax, today is the day of the hospital, this afternoon early. There is no cause to go to work, what for. Hospital food and hospital breakfast for one night only.

Get up, make coffee. 

Five forty five, the luxury of forty five extra minutes in bed enjoyed and now left behind for the coffee machine, the coffee grinder and the gas cooker. Fill the big Bialetti machine, first with water, then with coffee, freshly ground.

Play with the little kitten, it is too young to enjoy its head being scratched, it rolls over on its back and boxes with all four paws. With its claws retracted, it is only playing.

Still in the night clothes, get this computer, this writing machine, and take it to the table.

And then the coffee machine sounds, burbling as it percolates the black brew into its upper container. That stuff is all made of aluminium, probably poionous. According to new discoveries, anyhow.

Outside in the alley there is the sound of a large truck. These are the yellow bag people, with their orange truck with the orange warning lamps blinking. One man drives, the other man walks about the street collecting yellow bags all filled with plastic packaging refuse. Both dressed in bright orange dayglo overalls, with warning reflective stripes on their legs.

Run.

Out to the back of the house, collect the five bags produced by our family inside the last fortnight, and run out onto the alley. 

Place the bags beside the restaurant bags on the other side of the alley, catch the amused glance of the truck driver, and return to the house.

Go back upstairs, into the sitting room and watch the men dispose of those yellow bags along with all of the others.

Just in time, they were early today.

Back to the coffee, the table and this computer.

The wife’s alarm clock sounds at six thirty, and then the son’s at six forty six.

Sounds of good mornings.

the presence of the usually absent father is not realised, the usual absence is taken for granted.