While my worries waltz in and out of my life, day to day – I try singing the hours away. For a moment it begins to help, then it grows into something more . . . I try my notes, tuning in to how I make each sound, and draw them together into a phrase.

So deceivingly simple!

There is nothing in the room but me and its high ceiling, with ghostly cameo brooch-like plasterwork surrounding the overhanging lightbulb; its gawdy modern, plastic shade encapsulating its light like a jigsaw puzzle pinata. A plain but functional wardrobe loftily stands to my right with its flimsy sliding doors wide open, showing off my seasonally arranged clothes in all their expectant state. My eyes follow the length of one sage summer dress towards its hem, then past the drawers tucked neatly beneath it; they sedately traverse the fish scale tiled floor, which is cold and concrete, though tasteful, and pass the generously sized wooden desk at the foot of the room. The clothes horse which is ever constantly saddled with laundry from last weekend, impatiently waits by my left side.

Perhaps I should be more guarded about my privacy, I think whilst I watch the empty night-time streets from the little Juliet balcony which effortlessly floats from the giant glass window.

Shutters half-open to invite neighbours, geckos, or ghosts to waste an hour or two conversing.

The smoke of cheap sandalwood incense ascends to the ceiling before cascading into the street below, becoming instilled in the falling rain. I scroll through the list of songs that appear on the screen in front of me. I select one I know reasonably well, then I sing. Sitting Buddha-like, I hum and aah through the song on a vibrant quilt of autumnal auburn and ochre; the polyester patches are oddly comforting against the palms of my hands. For a while, its pattern grounds me, draws my mind away from the unmovable magnolia walls. My voice echoes all around, even with the faintest whisper, or the softest of notes.

In fact, the softer I try to sing, the louder it seems . . . almost aggressively so! Something in the music – perhaps the lyrics – takes hold of me, body and soul, and I am no longer just me. A rush resounds in every part of my being, like running down a steep grassy hillside, like diving into the deep.

Whose voice is this?

As is so when falling in love, how could anything be compared to such weightlessness?

Some other realm calls, whispers to me; voices crystal and celestial. I fear that if I dare to respond they might break, but the voices grow fuller and wiser; their chorus unnerves me, as they sing in a language that I do not know yet understand. Things that were, that are, that might be – a song that resonates through all time.

Even the dead can be heard singing, and it terrifies me. They mingle with the voices of the living, blending, losing themselves in each other as they become one. Even those who have yet to live join in the singing.

I am not alone – my words, my voice, my breath are not mine alone.
It terrifies me still.