At times I feel dispersed, no longer this distilled consciousness that I will call a spirit for lack of a better word. I have been dematerialised by the everyday, 9-5 effort of writing my thesis, leaving traces solely in words that disappear once I turn off this laptop.

To retain some sense of my body, I take walks along the river or on the prom, exercise, eat well, and go to bed at a time deemed reasonable by the 9-5'ers, those acolytes of productivity and targets. Occasionally, though, I lose it. Last night I went to see the new Mad Max movie and after revelling in the destruction of a patriarchal oil-obsessed death cult, I had too many glasses of cognac, and went bonkers, a mad wild-haired child who responds only to the logic, the utopia, of music.

I don't mind my hangover. Everything starts to pulsate around me. My body is the tree, the trees, I see beyond my office window, convulsing windblown, mixing foliage in the failing yet persistent attempt to fuse into one sibilant being. They sway together, rubbing bark and whispering lullabies or raging against the machine of the lawnmowers beneath them.

The man with the leaf blower is the perfect figure of futility in this wettest and most unseasonable of Mays. I want to cry, and shout, and laugh at the same time, and in that way, I try to fuse my voice with every other person on this planet, failing, persistently.

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