Our part of the world is wind-blown, windows rattling and gates banging, pedestrians rushing down Main Street, their heads bowed. Watching leaves scatter on the kitchen floor, I think of abandoned houses, on TV or in photographs, empty except for broken frames and dusty mirrors and ghosts, once noisy with striving and struggle, now becalmed by decay and death.

On our walk Sunday, I noted: daisies, orchids, dogroses, red clover, and ragged robin. The panting dog and the smiling husband, shaggy-haired from months of lockdown, hair corralled by my father's Khmer Navy reunion cap. Later the husband watched a football match on the telly, streamed via dodgy box: in the empty stadium, a player fouls to pre-recorded boos.

The last fortnight, I've been restless, even as I walked and read and enjoyed the company of my sister-in-law and her family. There's a sense I should be doing something else: writing, of course. "Even when I am spending time with family, walking my dogs, swimming in the sea, drinking with friends, even when I'm enjoying time--especially when I'm enjoying time--I perceive my real life to have stalled."—Sara Baume, Handiwork

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