Dazzled

 
Dazzled!

The sun-god is in the ascendancy and I'm listening to the bass on The Charlatans' "Forever".

Burly Poles are squaring up to each other in early-morning Orchard Street, but I don't care. I'm on my way to face project management inquisitors. I'm pretty relaxed - after all, you can't do enough for a good inquisition.

The music carries me on. As long as it plays I am inured from everything.
Through half-closed eyes I see hard lives around me. My own life, of which I was given a glimpse on Monday in a cafe by a metro station in Madrid. The metro station is contingent. Everything is contingent. This song in my ears. Everything. Me.

People live worse lives than mine, but even they are not so bad. My life takes the turns that it does because I attack it. Every day. Some prefer to have comfort and fun fill their days. Each and every one to their own.

The sun bursts over Weston's low roof-tops. Its white-gold intensity is almost liquid and it blasts away everything around it, blinding me.

I could find a place by a sun-trap wall or on a quiet bench and sit to pay homage for as long as it continues to rise and wash me in its light, but instead I run at it, into its pure energy-glare and seize one more day. One more assault on life.