for the plague era and a grin on my face. My jab’s a-coming. Until then I’ve got C Jam Blues to bring a surge of memories of a date in Montmartre, going out for coffee to a rain-lashed corner place and the barman playing a tape of Peterson loping about the keys. Memory fragments unreliable but still precious. I’ve got Chris Foss and his spacescape diversions, with Schenker’s lead breaks echoing around the cargo halls. I’ve got 81 pages of The Steppe to read and each one as close to perfect even in translation. There was a time long ago I could pick my way through the Russian but I’m too impatient now. I’ve got Carver, his pupil and himself a voice to reference back to it. And I’ve got my kin safe in the house, our cat curled up and snoozing. This Earth tumbles through the nothing, dragging its atmosphere and oceans with all its horde of snorting, twitching life and me kicking back in a chair with my scribblings, sounds and reveries. Interludes of happiness, impossible to deny.